


anotherArisen

by DreadfulStar



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Gore, Burns, Car Accidents, Curses, Decapitation, Drowning, Eventual Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Explosions, Fighting, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Multi, Murder, Stabbing, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Wakes & Funerals, falling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreadfulStar/pseuds/DreadfulStar
Summary: Another AU. A class curse causes mayhem unless one simple rule can be followed: don't talk to the extra student. Each year due to a curse where a ghost student, identity unknown, is in the class, the presence causes tragedies to follow. Ignoring one volunteer student and treating them as if they truly are not present prevents the curse from triggering. Karkat, late to the beginning of school, is never told the rule. Unfortunately, this doesn't come without dire consequences. If someone stops following the rule... the curse comes alive.
Kudos: 12





	1. Overture

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the fantastic anime, novel, and manga series "Another," which is NOT required to read this.  
> My first Homestuck fic ever.
> 
> Also if you are curious about those tags, they are yet to come but stick around

What better way to spend the last inklings of summer than go off to the mystical holy land that is Hollywood on a cinema club trip. Of course, the trip was only able to be marred by the unfortunately timed bus breakdown. Humans haven’t quite seemed to learn how to properly build things to last, as it turns out. The bus repair would take almost a week in the shop, causing all students on the trip to not only be forced to spend more money on unplanned hotel rooms (which the human high school promised to reimburse after returning) but also missing the first five days of class. The first week is the easiest week with nearly no assignments and mostly ‘getting acquainted’ time. By the time the club would be able to return, the easy part would be over and everyone would have to begin actually learning about various tedious factoids. 

A week longer stuck with off and on annoying humans and being the only troll in the cinema club, Karkat wanted to pull his hair out. Sure, humans had begun to be easier to deal with but he still mostly stuck to his ring of friends. The humans still seemed skittish around trolls but that was natural. Trolls had only begun appearing on their planet for about twenty years now, a considerable bit longer than Karkat and his group had arrived. The trolls that did arrive often came for the novelty of the school system, sports, or tourism. Those aged similar to the school-aged often enrolled, which is exactly what the twelve trolls decided to do after the encouragement by both John and Jade, who insisted that education was a blast. Rose informed many of them that the education path often leads to the possession of great power over the world, using Jeff Bezos the great King of Amazon, as her example. This certainly was appealing to some. The availability of like-minded peers in clubs, like the cinema club, also seemed appealing. Dave apathetically mentioned on the topic that school allowed for more time to see one another outside a chatroom, which Karkat admittedly felt rather… eager about. He only really knew the four humans before enrolling and the ability to see some more often gave him a bit of a twinge in the chest. Must’ve been excited to be in a school, obviously, nothing else. 

Karkat checked his phone persistently over the next few days, aware that all his friends were in the same class. The teacher was no one of importance. Why none of his friends messaged him or checked on him yet, he wasn’t sure. Probably too busy? 

Finally, bus repaired and students loaded up, the trip home began. By the time the bus came home, it would be Sunday evening. Everyone began to check their emails and messages or school modules to see what they would need to catch up on before the school week. For the most part, everyone was emailed the syllabus and various materials needed to become acquainted with the class policies. Other students were just now figuring out what classes they would be in. Once the checking of classes started, the whispering began. 

A few humans in the club started whispering to one another after looking over the class rosters . A few eyes would land on Karkat. He scratched his nails over his palm.  _ Why would they be looking at me after seeing what class I am in? Is it a human thing? Did they see all the troll names? Is that it? Of course, it’s just that.  _ Karkat ran his pointed teeth over his dark lower lip. Karkat caught onto a bit of a conversation he managed to catch over the soft rumble of road noise and the jarring music someone up front was listening to outloud, as one respectfully does. 

“He’s in that one? You think it’s true?” He couldn’t hear any further. 

What could be true, a nearly all troll class?  _ Yeah that’s probably it. _ Karkat thought to himself, trying not to feel oddly on display by the quick glances. Obviously. 

After the long ride, Karkat was exhausted. He put away his headphones and closed out of his Netflix. A long banner flashed from the top of the screen. A message from Dave appeared. 

TG: rose has something she needs to tell you tomorrow before school because after that she isnt sure itll be in our collective best interests and we are forbidden to tell you ourselves which as much as i would greatly love violating the grandiose rules put in place to obviously manipulate us like sheep this one i think i’ll stick to. see you tomorrow. take her seriously too 

Karkat blinked. Such an odd and ominous text. He knew it was probably nothing extreme. With Rose as junior year class president, she probably had some ridiculous set of rules she wanted everyone to follow. Maybe community volunteering assignments or something uber generous for the sake of application fodder. He shook his head and pulled up the message to reply. 

CG: WHATEVER PRESIDENTIAL RULES SHE HAS, I’M SURE I WILL HATE IT

TG: we all do especially with the potential consequences

Karkat rolled his eyes. Rose really must be going for dramatic with her tiny school government. Consequences, sure, like writing “I’m sorry I offended Rose” five hundred times on a piece of paper and turning it or writing an essay during Saturday detention, as witnessed in a classic, high quality film about a group of teenagers. 

With Sunday drawing to a close and his back hurting from the poorly designed and named bucket seats of the school bus, all Karkat wanted to worry about now was taking a miniature hibernation in his warm abode before school. He’d worry about writing his five hundred sentences he was sure he’d be assigned at some point later. He wouldn’t really care that much if he had to, as Rose probably had her justification for making the policy. 

Now was the time for sleep

The screaming alarm clock finally startled the disgruntled troll awake. Karkat gazed with burning eyes up at the nuisance.

7:45am. 

He bolted up, all sleep departing from him as he leapt from the bed and rushed to get ready. Luckily trolls look fantastic with messy hair. He briefly scrubbed his teeth and ran out of the house. School started at 8:00am, which gave him barely any time to arrive and talk to Rose. Hopefully if the conversation fell null due to his tardiness, Rose would find other opportunities to discuss her glorious newly formatted constitution with him. 

Once arriving, breathless, his short body shaking from the exertion of running such a distance, he wandered into hall labelled Frog (stupid human hall names). He found room 30 and walked inside. The clock above him said 7:58am. He felt a rush of relief knowing he was at least not late. Kanaya glared at him from her spot by the door. 

“You weren’t at the meeting Rose requested from you. Dave said he told you to be here. It was critical.” Kanaya sneered at him, “Can’t you follow a simple order. We can’t tell you. She insisted. She just walked out to look for you in the hallway.”

Karkat groaned, “Fine, gah, I’ll talk to her at lunch about her stupid rule she imposed, alright?”

“It’s probably too late, just… follow suit and only talk to those you see others talking to for now,” Kanaya glanced around the room then up to the clock. 

_ How exciting, a no talking policy or something? Distraction policies are harsh now, huh. _ Karkat scoffed to himself, which gained a wide-eyed glance from Jade sitting next to where he was standing. 

Rose at this point walked in as the clock dared hit eight o’clock. She opened her mouth, looked at the clock, then grimaced as she made her way to her front row seat, casting a hateful glare towards Karkat on her way. Karkat, nonplussed, found his seat by the curly, ram-horned girl by the window. He figured Aradia wouldn’t mind. 

The open seat had Aradia to his left, Dave behind him, Gamzee to his right, and Terezi ahead of him. Once sitting down, he started opening his small portable binder that conveniently zipped all the way around it, as much as Dave laughed at it. It was a convenient carrying utility. As a man of minimalism and forgetfulness, he only carried one pen inside the binder to use to take notes or scribble with. As he scrounged about through the binder, his only pen bounced to the floor, rolling to his left and halting to a stop underneath Aradia’s desk. 

He sighed and looked over to her.

“Hey, Ar- hey!” Karkat shot around to look at Dave, as he had just kicked his desk with enough power to jolt him forward. 

“Shh!” Dave warned. 

“My pen fell under her desk, what should I crawl under her skirt and grab it myself like some perverted basement dweller?” Karkat aggressively whispered, pointing down. Aradia only glanced over and proceeded to ignore him. 

“Yes, take mine,” Dave said as he offered forward a standard style pen.

“Or I could just get mine?” Karkat mumbled. 

“No, take mine,” Dave seemingly demanded, tilting his head down and shaking it. 

“Fine, I’ll take yours…” Karkat huffed and turned around.  _ Weird. _

Gamzee smiled over at Karkat, grinning like a Cheshire cat, “Close one, bro.”

“Close one what?” Karkat squinted.

“You know, ohhh, ah, heh,” his lip twitches, “nevermind, Karbro.”

With a flustered handflap, Karkat sank in his chair and stared forward with a growing annoyance. Gamzee awkwardly glanced around and shrugged. He clearly knew something he wasn’t sharing. 

What a great start to the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Overture by Icon for Hire


	2. Chlorine

When class was finished and the group collectively passed onto next period, Karkat took the initiative to talk to Dave. The towheaded boy walked along the edge of the hallway, wireless white earbuds in, listening to something. Karkat veered over to the side of the hall Dave was on and harshly jabbed him in the arm. Dave pulled out one earbud and looked at Karkat. 

“The hell was that?” Dave asked, raising an eyebrow and putting his hand over the offended spot. 

“For kicking my chair in class and making me wait until everything was over just to retrieve one freaking pen!” Karkat barked.

“For your own good. You didn’t get to talk to Rose.”

“Oh stop it with these infernal shenanigans, because it has already grown to the point of utmost irritation and we’ve only been here for one damned hour,” Karkat tightened a fist. 

“I get anger is like, your thing, my dude, but maybe try to lay low and try not talking so much until you figure out why,” Dave glanced around. The group had started filing into the next class but as stragglers, a handful were still making their ways in chatting. Dave stood by the door and gave one final word of advice, “In fact, maybe just don’t talk for the rest of the day. Can’t screw it up that way.”

Karkat groaned. Dave headed inside to head a back row seat before anyone else decided to. Nepeta and Equius were next to pass beside him. Nepeta was vigorously complaining about how the school won’t let her wear her precious blue beanie indoors because of some human clothing policy about hats inside the building. Equius merely smiled. Aradia walked by slowly, a nonchalant yet vacant look on her face as she observed everyone walking by. Karkat’s eyebrows raised with a start as he saw her.

“Hey, Aradia, why didn’t Dave let me talk to you in class? Is there-” Karkat began. Aradia didn’t look at him immediately. Instead she winked and raised her index finger gently to her lips: the signal to be quiet. Anger began bubbling under Karkat’s skin. _Oh fuck this._

Karkat turned to enter inside the classroom only to have his shoulder harsly gripped from the side. Eridan stood there, a grim look on his face. 

“Don’t talk to things that aren’t there.”

“Can you all not be so cryptic? At this rate you will all be speaking in such deeply rooted lore that the human fantasy films will be put to shame!” Karkat huffed and jerked his shoulder from Eridan’s grasp. 

Eridan met Karkat’s huff with an equally gruff huff. He bared his teeth in aggravation and responded, “I’m just trying to help. You mess this up, I will hold it against you. Last time I try to help someone not worth my time.” He gave a dramatic twist, cape swishing behind him, and headed off to his desired seat. 

Karkat gritted his teeth and wanted to screech right then and there, but given the chemistry teacher’s intensifying stare, he figured it was best to sit down. The teacher, a young, tall, and lanky brown haired man with relatively fair skin, seemed to stare him down on his way to a seat. Once again, Karkat found a seat beside Gamzee still open. Gamzee, who was consistently sitting mid front of the class, tended to bob his head to the side while thinking to himself or watching out the window instead of listening to the lecture. While there was a seat behind him as well, anyone as short as Karkat knew it was not in their best interests to sit behind the looming, tall horned figure. Not surprising, there were a few empty seats in that row. 

He plopped himself down and looked over to Gamzee, “Why do you insist on sitting where people can’t see around your massive head?”

“Whoa… People can’t see around me? Shit, my bad,” Gamzee drew out his words and looked around him. “Too late, I sat here. Can’t change it now.”

“Just sit farther back tomorrow?” Karkat blinked.

“Nah, written in stone. Forever. Can’t. The messiahs hath ordained.” He sighed. Karkat’s eye twitched and he opened his mouth twice before shaking his head. 

The teacher rambled on and on about the random introductory nonsense about atoms and their special periodic table, about protons and electrons and et cetera. Karkat scratched his nails across his desk, considering off and on whether to take notes or just read it on the Wikipedia page later. He looked behind him to look where everyone had positioned themselves. After introducing the various topics for about thirty minutes, the teacher went on to make an announcement. 

“Now, there will be an ongoing project in this class examining both minor and extreme chemical reactions. We will begin with the smaller more harmless things one might be familiar with like those fake volcanos from early elementary school or uhh,” the teacher looked at all the horned figures, “if you aren’t familiar, then ask a human.”

Karkat raised an eyebrow. Dave pantomimed a fake explosion with his hands. Karkat looked away. _Human children play with explosives? For school?_

“Furthermore, there will be a partnered component to this assignment. I will allow you to pick your own partners, but given the headcount in the class, either one will need to work alone or there will be a group of three. I will end class a bit early to allow for partner allocation,” the teacher nodded to the clock then picked up a stack of papers and began passing them out. As the papers began to spread, everyone began chattering to each other. 

_Odd number?_ Karkat looked around. There were sixteen people. That easily added up to enough for eight pairs. The teacher was educating this class about chemistry and can’t even count? Pathetic excuse for a teacher.

“Bro,” Gamzee softly stroked Karkat’s arm with his finger, smiling wide, “we gotta pair up. I wanna play with chemicals.”

Karkat put out his arm and shoved Gamzee, “You are not playing with the chemicals, you fucking idiot.” 

“Hell yeah I am.” Gamzee licked his lips and waggled his eyebrows. Karkat only quickly shook his head and ferociously face palmed. 

“No!” Karkat hissed. 

The teacher banged his marker on the board to get everyone to pay attention and stop talking. Everyone settled back in place and looked over their papers. The guidelines for the assignment were explicitly written out. Over the next few weeks, every Friday, one unit of the project would be worked away at. The units began off easily with identification and safety procedure training. Sure, always wear goggles and don’t play with acid, easy enough! 

“Read over this sheet and be sure to memorize the safety policies. There will be a quiz over it tomorrow to ensure everyone read and understood the policies,” the teacher stated. Everyone nodded. “If that is understood, then I open class up for talking. I recommend you use this time to find a partner.” He sat down at the desk and started typing into his computer. 

“Karkat’s my partner… for life,” Gamzee irritatingly patted Karkat’s head with a playful grin. 

“Not quite.”

“Yes.”

“Okay fine, if you say so,” Karkat sighed, exasperated. He looked around the class to figure out who was deciding to partner up with who. 

Nepeta and Equius were already chatting away, surely already set on each other. He saw Sollux and Feferi high five which must’ve been an agreement. Terezi was poking Dave in the back, having gotten out of her seat and stood behind him. Kanaya and Rose looked at each other (duh, who else?). John and Jade were writing on a piece of paper together. Tavros politely shied away from Vriska but nodded in her direction. Eridan looked around, hand slightly in the air as if to get someone’s attention but never quite initiating it. Karkat looked back to the lone Aradia sitting in the back corner, flipping through her book and not paying any bit of attention. Eridan would have to be partners with her then, as they were the only ones left behind. After looking around, Eridan got up and walked over to where Sollux and Feferi were sitting side by side while flipping through the textbook, seemingly planning ahead. 

“May I join your group?” Eridan asked, directing his question to Feferi. 

She pursed her lips and glanced at Sollux. He raised the side of his mouth in a shrugging manner. She blinked a few times and looked down. “Well, I think we could but a group of three seems awfully complicated for a project designed specially for only two people. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Eridan stiffened his posture, clearly offended but trying not to be obvious, “Well, of course, wouldn’t want to _burden_ you at all.”

“Oh please don’t be dramatic… maybe ask someone else? Nepeta and Equius? Or…” Feferi started. 

“I’ll tell the teacher I’ll be the one to work alone,” Eridan quickly responded with a snide tone before walking away towards the front desk. Feferi looked to Sollux and shrugged. 

Karkat stopped observing and turned to Gamzee, who was now rolling his procedure sheet into a tightly rolled tube. He started, “Why can’t Eridan just partner with Ara- ow!” 

Gamzee jabbed Karkat’s cheek with the rolled up paper. The end of the paper tube left a tiny papercut knick in his skin. A reddish hue came to the line but nothing came from it. “Hush, man. You know… well you don’t. Talk to blond president chick and she’ll tell ya’. Wild. Can’t say more, nope, swore on our precious, precious lives.”

“Seriously? Even fucking _you_ are taking this fucking bullshit class government rule no one will even goddamn tell me _that_ seriously? I’m already fucking fed up with it. I’ll talk to her after class or some fucking shit and get this fancy talking rule out of the way. Is it an anti-Karkat talking about people rule?” Karkat accused. He licked his finger and pressed it to the tiny stinging spot on his cheek.

“That’d be easier to explain. But nah, gotta be like spirits and vibes and all that shit out of whack. That’s all I will say, my lips are metaphorically sealed, very shut, as you can tell from my explanation. Sealed. Tight. Absolutely. Quiet. Won’t talk. Nope.”

“Stop talking,” Karkat clawed his face and proceeded to gesture angrily with it afterwards, claws pointing up. 

Gamzee laughed, “Bro, you like a demented chihuahua. Ya’ bark and bark, but I dunno because if you get close enough to bite,” he leaned in with a tight smile, “I could just punt you far, far away.”

A shrill bell rung from above. Everyone stopped their chatter for a second, only to have the conversations brighten during passing period. A low grumble rolled in Karkat’s stomach, undoubtedly anxiety from beginning to worry over the thing-he-didn’t-know. He saw Rose walking beside Kanaya as they headed out. He glanced around before skittering over. 

“Rose, so about this morning…”

“You ditched. You have not one bit of intelligence if you blew off something you were told was critical information. I can’t tell you it now. The rules are in place and in full swing. I… probably shouldn’t even say that much,” She threw her head back forward and started walking. She stopped with an unsteady pose before whipping back around and leaping a step forward. Rose raised her hand and pointed her finger directly into Karkat’s face, only an inch from touching skin. “Meet me on the outskirts of town tonight beyond the library. I will explain everything possible but I cannot wait long. I have to pack and be ready to go with my mother to a conference out of town tomorrow. I will be gone for three days. Only in person and out of town will cut it and even _then_ I cannot promise I will be straightforward for protection’s sake. The rules follow even beyond the school. Got it? From 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm latest! Meet me. Promise?”

Karkat opened his mouth uneasily at his eyes focused on the hand pointing at his face. He stepped back and put up his hands defensively in defeat, “Okay! Okay! I’ll meet you at this secret drug-deal-with-a-cop sounding rendezvous. You happy?”

“You screw this up, you risk everything.” Rose squinted, tilting her head down, then marching forward to class. 

“She means it,” Kanaya murmured.

“Huh?”

“You really are risking everything. For everyone, too” Kanaya turned and followed Rose’s lead, leaving Karkat as confused as ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chlorine by Twenty One Pilots


	3. Trade Mistakes

The group slowly meandered through the halls. As the group wandered to the next assigned class, they passed the various humans that dominated the school body. Typical reactions followed, such as staring, photos, or murmuring. While other trolls were in the main student body, this particular group requested to be together. The school happily obliged. Normally, the students wouldn’t have to travel around the school to get to the next, but the main staircase for the building was under repairs. The railing was having issues with wobbling so the school paid to have a brand new one installed. The repairs would be finished by the end of the next day, so this trip only had to happen a few more times. After all, Karkat wasn’t sure he enjoyed being watched like a spectacle. As they passed, a blonde girl with thick rimmed glasses turned to her friend and nudged her. 

“I heard that they put that group into...F. Hall 30 for first period home room.” She raised her eyebrows. 

“School doesn’t like risking humans anymore, not that they admit it,” the shorter friend replied. Karkat slowed his pace to listen. 

“Maybe so, but it’s been a few years since it’s been… whatever they call it. I don’t think I truly believe it anyway! ” The taller girl crossed her arms and laughed, as if what she was discussing was ridiculous. 

“Well everyone knows the legend. I’m a skeptic but I still get scared of being put in that class. Oh, uhh we should go,” the second friend pulled on the other’s long shirt, “because that short one is staring.” 

Karkat nervously swallowed after feeling caught and quickly followed his friends to the stairs all the way on the other side. He was straggling behind. He clutched his binder and made his legs move much faster than they like too. Most students avoided potentially bumping into trolls, so it wasn’t hard to catch back up during busy passing periods. Nepeta had stopped along the way to lap at the water fountain (not drink, lap). That caught some eyes. She wiped her mouth with her long coat sleeve and smiled at him. 

“Hey, why’ya walking slowly slow? You tired? It’s only third period. You looking forward to lunch? Me too. I’m hungry,” Nepeta smiled and trotted along beside Karkat. 

“I was distracted, not hungry.” 

“Ooh, distracted? I get distracted, too. Sometimes I’ll be walking along, flapping my cute little hands being happy and such and then I see some cute furry beast running along the pavement!” She mimicked her story as she walked up the stairs. “So, I lock onto it and track it. Then pow!” She claws down through the air. “I pounce and I take my prize home. But then I remember I was going somewhere. Life is like that.” 

Karkat only nodded, unsure he wanted to potentially encourage any more rambling. At the top of the stairs, Nepeta sauntered off to the right and into class. Math class was the final period before the lunch break. Afterwards followed English, which was bizarre that students who already spoke a language had to take a class on it each year. After English followed history and then finally a health class. Dave informed Karkat earlier that health class was often the more entertaining of the bunch, not necessarily the learning part but the watching others get uncomfortable part. Many students got flustered or humored by the genitalia units and sex education component. Karkat felt confident that at this point, he already understood human sexuality because it was a common theme in many films. However, if it is a good form of entertainment, then he was all willing. 

Unfortunately, math class dragged on. Most of the friends zoned out. There were about three diligently taking notes, namely Rose, Kanaya, and a nervous Equius, but the others were either lazily writing or sneaking their devices under the table. Dave seemed rather engrossed in his phone. Slight flashes from the screen gave away that he was busy playing a mobile game rather than anything else. Nepeta and Jade were both doodling on the backs of their notebooks. Sollux was watching a bee lazily bumble about the tall tulips growing in the gardens lining the outer school walls while taking slight notes at the same time. Otherwise, things got boring fast. When class finally ended and signalled the beginning of lunch, spirits perked up.

John and Dave started talking as they walked out. Karkat matched their pace. 

“You can sit with us at lunch if you want,” John mentioned. “Most people already have their chosen spots by now because it’s been a week. But we have extra seats at our table.”

“Who else sits with you?” Karkat asked. 

“Tables seat six. We have Jade, John, me, and Terezi right now. So there is room for you and probably one more if you were inclined,” Dave answered. The hall began flooding with students making their way to the large cafeteria building. 

“I’ll accept the offer.”

Dave patted Karkat’s shoulder, “I figured you would’ve sat with us anyway.”

_ Yeah _ , Karkat thought,  _ he was right.  _

With the school day over at four o’clock, everyone felt exhausted. Karkat took a moment to stretch in the lounge outside the school library before heading home. The school library stayed open for two hours after school due to the amount of clubs after school on campus. Many clubs took place in classrooms, but many made trips to the library for various reasons. Also, by staying open, the library gave an opportunity for some teenagers to hang out somewhere admittedly safer than on the streets or wait for a parent to get them. Regardless, the seats were rather comfortable and one could happily sit there for a while. 

Karkat had a feeling he may have been forgetting something, but he figured it would strike him at any moment. While sitting there in a soft green lounge chair, he opened Netflix and began scrolling through recommended titles.  _ How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days  _ caught his eye. The movie ran for 116 minutes. That seemed reasonable. That’d have it end right before the lounge would be cleared out at 6pm. Karkat put in his headphones and tapped play. 

At 5:45pm, a banner appeared across his screen, interrupting the scene. He looked at it, annoyed someone would want to talk to him right this second. The light purple message triggered his memory.

TT: Where the fuck are you?

_ Oh fuck. _

CG: SCHOOL LOUNGE AS OF RIGHT NOW.

TT: Why! Why are you at the school lounge right now! I have been waiting for an era here for you to finally show your idiotic self. 

CG: I’LL COME NOW. 

TT: There is no conceivable way you could get to the outskirts before I have to immediately go home and prepare for the conference. You have made a dire mistake. I don't even know how to reconcile this disaster. The stakes are high and all hopes are potentially dashed. I am so enraged with you, I cannot even formulate a proper response to convey my deepest feelings on the matter at hand. 

CG: COULD WE JUST TALK TOMORROW?

TT: I will be out of town for days! And we cannot discuss this over messages because the class agreed that messages may count as engaging. I cannot believe you have done this!

CG: IT’LL BE FINE.

TT: It better fucking be. Keep your damn mouth closed if you can until I figure out the best damage control technique for this situation. You know what, just don’t talk to anyone unless they talk to you first. That should do it. 

CG: HARSH. 

TT: You have no damn clue do you. Do you not even know the story? Surely you would’ve caught on if you had. 

CG: I THINK I AM STARTING TO FIGURE OUT THERE IS SOME ELUSIVE LEGEND I APPARENTLY SHOULD KNOW ABOUT. 

TT: You really are an idiot. My phone is dying. I need to go home. I’m so angry right now. 

The messages stopped. Karkat turned off his phone screen and stared ahead. His mood was shattered and uneasiness was nipping away at him There really was something serious going on, but he genuinely didn’t know what it was. Why couldn’t someone just tell him?

That night, regardless of who he tried to talk to, nothing felt right. A fluttering feeling would nestle in his chest and take off when he started thinking about accidentally ditching Rose. Normally, he wouldn’t get so preoccupied over a mistake like that, but this time the feeling refused to dissipate. 

While quietly stirring in anxiety, he thought of a new person to talk to. 

CG: HEY ARADIA, ARE YOU BUSY?

After some time, a response appears. A strange buzz trickled through his body when he read it. 

AA: are you sure about this?

CG: SURE ABOUT WHAT?

AA: talking to me

CG: WELL I AM CLEARLY MESSAGING YOU SO OBVIOUSLY YES I AM SURE

AA: i didnt realize no one managed to tell you yet but i expected so due to your mistakes

Karkat hesitated, trying to think of what to respond. While he was waiting, she responded once more. 

AA: i must admit i am dreadfully curious what might happen

CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

AA: lets find out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trade Mistakes by Panic! at the Disco


	4. crushcrushcrush

Before class, Aradia was standing by the doorway, lightly swishing her long and flowy skirt around. Karkat saw her and approached. 

“What were you talking about last night?” He asked.

“Oh, just being playful obviously. I probably shouldn’t but curiosity has been building quite a lot. I’ve been tempted and so I shall give in. But to be fair, you shouldn’t be talking to me but I suppose their failure makes the ignorance easy to exploit. Their loss,” she smiled, “probably.”

Aradia looked to her left at the sound of footsteps. Kanaya stopped in her tracks and stared in horror at the two talking. Aradia quickly bustled into the room and abandoned Karkat out in the hallway. 

Kanaya suddenly sprinted and grasped Karkat by the shirt, “What the fuck do you think you are doing!”

“I’m not doing anything!” He insisted and tried to pry her hands away from him. 

“Yes you fucking are! Can you not listen to literally  _ any  _ order? Rose was clear, she told me. You may not know everything but is it that hard to take a hint?” She pushed her knuckles into him before tugging her hands away. Students of all types began to fill the hallway as the hour approached. She backed off, not wanting to get reprimanded by a passing teacher for assault. 

She slumped her shoulders and scowled. Karkat put his hands up in surrender. 

“Whatever it is, I get it is serious,” Karkat scowled back and tore away from the spot, getting increasingly irritated. 

Soon the warning bell rang and the rest of his friends filed in. Nepeta had her hat on her head but after entering, Equius softly lifted it off. 

“You can put it back on after school,” he gently laid it in her hands. She was pouting. 

“But you and Dave get away with your sunglasses. It isn’t fair! I want my hat on.”

“Sunglasses aren’t against clothing policy here. Hats are,” he said sympathetically. 

“Then take off your glasses and be in this with me!” She begged with her hands folded to her chest and her eyes big and sorrowful. He looked down at the tiny girl and sighed. He wiped at his face then removed his glasses, looping them on his shirt. She responded with a joyous squee and hugged him.  _ Aw how cute _ , Karkat thought to himself and rolled his eyes at their antics. 

The clock slowly ticked away for home room. For the most part, the hour was designed for homework, project assistance, writing papers, and reading. Occasionally students left to consult with a teacher on an assignment. With nothing to do, the first hour was generally boring. 

Everyone sat in their general position. The room was in a four by four layout. Front row being Rose, Kanaya, Eridan, and Tavros. Second row consisted of Vriska, Terezi, Feferi, and Sollux. Karkat’s row was Aradia, himself, Gamzee, and Jade. The furthermost row was John, Dave, Equius, and Nepeta. Given the layout, talking to a friend was an easy way to pass the time. Dave tended to scroll through various feeds on his phone. Kanaya busied herself by reading. Her phone, face up, lay next to her. She glanced at the screen a few times once in a while. Any notification made her interested but she disregarded them once seeing what they were from. Without Rose in class to talk to, she was waiting on any message for a check in. Her increasing glances hinted at a lack of communication and an uncomfortable one at that. 

Karkat tapped his desk. He leaned back and stretched his legs. Small pops ran down his spine as he stretched, which gave him a sweeping sense of relaxation. He yawned. He could’ve done schoolwork but he decided not to. Honestly, it was way too early in the morning to think about anything of great importance. His phone sat to the side, but unlike the others, he wasn’t receiving any notifications. For a moment, he considered putting down his head and taking a nap. 

Suddenly, the shrill sound of a chair scraping across the ground filled the air. The chair that was aggressively tossed backward thudded against the table behind it, eliciting a startled gasp from the student sitting there. Jade’s hands shook as she watched the chair against her desk slide off to the side and strike the ground. Sollux, the student sitting in front of her, was standing at his desk, knees bent inwards and his hands trembling as they clutched his ears. His breathing started to tremor in his chest. Sollux gasped heavier with each shake. His nails started digging into his skin as he took a step back and stumbled. 

“No, no!” Sollux shrieked. Everyone’s eyes fell on him. 

“Sollux?” Jade asked, starting to stand up as well. 

With everyone staring at him, his eyes darted from face to face before he bolted from the room. On the way out, his foot caught the chair lying prone on the ground and flung him forward. Despite crashing to the ground, he bounded back to his feet and ran out of the room. Feferi, sitting to the left of his desk, leapt to her feet and shouted after him.

“Hey! Wait! Sollux!” She called and chased after him. 

Karkat rose to his own feet and began to follow Sollux out into the hallway. Aradia almost stood up herself, a bleak, shocked look on her face. She looked around and ultimately only let herself walk to the doorway and watch from afar. Students quickly averted their gazes from her, careful not to potentially acknowledge her presence at the doorway. Karkat started to walk out but Jade stopped him.

“Maybe he needs some space?” She said, subdued. “Does anyone know what could’ve happened?”

Another screech from the hall could be heard. The tension began to swell in the classroom. 

“I have no idea,” Karkat said. He raised his eyebrows and looked around. Everyone was shrugging. Eridan met Karkat’s wandering gaze and started to get up. Jade walked forward and picked up the chair. She carefully put the chair up to the desk. All but Vriska and Kanaya had now rose from their seats and began walking towards the door to try and gauge what was occuring in the hallway. Karkat also walked to the doorway, standing beside Aradia. 

Sollux was sitting with his back into the wall. Feferi was softly stroking his hair and shaking her head. 

“Do you understand what it’s from?” She quietly asked.

“I heard it. I heard  _ all  _ of them. But… it was also her,” he apprehensively murmured. 

“Who?” Feferi crouched beside him and cut off the view.

Eridan towered over Karkat to look out into the hallway, “What is he saying?” 

“I don’t understand it enough to say,” Karkat looked over his shoulder. 

Aradia gasped and pushed her way through the flock of bodies back to her seat and pulled her legs up into her chair. She stared forward. Karkat bounced his gaze between her and Sollux before walking away. Something felt dangerously disrespectful to gawk at his breakdown in the hallway. Everyone nervously hovered back around their desks. 

One by one, students sat back down. Eridan stayed standing in the hallway to keep an eye on the pair in the hallway. The crying had faltered into silence by now. Assumably, he was calming down with Feferi’s help. It was under control, although the thought didn’t ease the tension. 

Dave reopened his phone to play the game he was on when it buzzed. He stared down at his phone for a long moment before looking dead ahead with a slack expression. Karkat started to ask him what was wrong when additional phone vibrations began. Various notifications from news apps and Twitter began to pop up on everyone’s screen. Karkat’s own phone vibrated in the pocket he shoved it into. As he went to pull it out, Kanaya lunged from her seat and yelled at the teacher. 

“Turn on the news now! Now!” She gripped her desk in a terrified, slumped forward pose. 

The teacher fumbled briefly to get up but finally turned on the television. Flicking through about three channels, a news broadcast came on. A lithe woman in a sleek, red dress and classic blonde Hollywood reporter hair stood in front of the camera. Sirens were flashing behind her. Smoke was heavily drifting through the air. A demolished building lay wasted behind her in view. The reporter gripped her microphone and continued talking. 

“As we can see here, the Central Medical and Scientific Conference building has been completely destroyed in the explosion. Current reports are relaying a potential airstrike to be responsible. Many crucial medical breakthroughs were to be revealed tonight during the assembly, leaving many responders calling this a terrorist attack. Current assailants are unknown.”

The class was silent, fixated on the screen. Nepeta bit her sleeves in horror. Equius placed a hand on her shoulder. Near the front, Tavros looked pitifully sorrowful looking at the horrific imagery. Terezi directed her face towards the sound of the television, but thankfully couldn’t see the intricacies of the broken glass and burning, smouldering wood laying in heaps on top of hidden bodies. Vriska gave a soft harrumph while raising an eyebrow. John covered his face, trying to deny himself of what he was seeing and registering. Dave looked over at him and tried to comfort him as best as he awkwardly could. In return, John got up and latched onto Dave into a shaking hug. Dave patted him on the back. Karkat could only stare. 

The reporters voice continued, “Bodies are being found by all teams on site. So far, no living individuals have been located. While not impossible, survivors are not expected. Back to you-” The teacher turned off the screen.

“Rose was there!  _ Rose was there! _ ” Kanaya screamed. She started to cry viciously heavy tears. She flung her body around and pointed at Karkat. “This is all  _ your  _ fault! You talked to  _ her _ ! You did this!”

“What? Me?” Karkat had all eyes dart to him. 

Jade got up and rushed to Kanaya’s side. She gripped the taller troll’s arm as Kanaya began to spring forwards. Kanaya, halted in her spot, breathed heavily and stared at Jade in offense.

“No, maybe not! Maybe it’s… listen, attacks happen. Remember, we had 9/11 happen and shootings happen here all the time. Bad things happen! Maybe… it could just be… bad things at fault,” Jade insisted. “Don’t fall into it. Maybe  _ it  _ has not started!”

Kanaya’s eyebrows shook. She took in Jade’s words and suddenly collapsed forward onto her and cried. 

“Be optimistic, she could have survived. She’s sly like that.”

Kanaya nodded, “I want her to be alive. So much.”

Karkat looked at his phone. The glaring headline was like acid on the eyes.  _ “Assumed Terrorist Attack on Science Conference: No Survivors Expected” _

A voice quietly drew everyone’s attention to the doorway. Sollux slowly walked in, head down and arm gripping his other. Eridan slunk past him and returned to his seat. Feferi gripped Sollux’s shoulder in a slight comforting gesture before heading back to her own spot. 

He repeated himself, “Rose is dead. I heard her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, those are song titles for chapter titles and yes they are all relevant.
> 
> crushcrushcrush by Paramore


	5. KILL YOUR CONSCIENCE

The next three days were arduous. Rose’s body was never  _ truly  _ recovered. She couldn’t be. She never would be. The bodies were all incinerated and scattered during the blasts. Unfortunately, everyone's bodies now rested scattered like an ungodly piece of pottery tossed down from the sky. Each presumed skeleton would be placed in a body bag, individually, and labeled with a DVI number. Some may forever stay that way. Some bodies may have merged into one, unknown, and others decimated in the blast. This is the horror of a mass disaster. 

All Kanaya knew was Rose would never come home. Furthermore, she would never have a proper human burial. Maybe a memorial stone, but not a grave marker. That was the unfortunate reality. Humans cared rather greatly for the disposal and memory of their dead. The entire endeavor had complex rituals dedicated to the process. Entire fields were reserved for the burials. Some would never be buried but instead incinerated and pulverised into what they referred to as “ashes,” which they weren’t by technicality. Rose’s body was subjected to the inferno and burnt like the cremated bodies; however, at least the family consents and chooses cremation. No one chooses to die by terrorist attack. That sense of control was shattered. 

During the various hours that pass in the night, Karkat had a dreadful sludge of a feeling move through him. Perhaps he really was somehow to blame? 

Four days. Karkat was subjected to horrible glances and silence for nearly four days. While at home, only Dave, Gamzee, or Aradia reached out to him, albeit the latter was his initiation. He shared his brief woes as neutrally as possible, to which Gamzee returned with his outlandish comfort advice. On the fourth day, Karkat woke up groggily and stared at the alarm clock yet to signal. He heard chattering noises in the accompanying hallway. Soft clicks echoes with contented muted shrills. Karkat’s lusus peaked his head into the open doorway and clicked softly. Karkat raised his hand and waved it weakly. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m awake. I’m just… waiting for the alarm,” Karkat yawned. He had a dreadful lingering nightmare that had already become only a haunting haze. The details he couldn’t place, but Karkat could remember fire. 

His lusus opened and closed his large claws happily. Karkat sighed to himself. Not everyone had been able to immigrate over with their lusus, but he had. The lusus had to be distinguished by height, weight, and overall threat. Thankfully, Karkat didn’t feel so alone with his lusus lumbering around the large apartment complex. The past view days in particular evoked a certain sense of isolation. Karkat hoped it would end soon. 

The alarm buzzed per usual. He rose, got dressed, and grabbed his backpack. Before leaving, he gave his lusus a short bye. He received a very loving screech for a response. 

“Yeah, yeah, love you, too, I’ll be safe.”

His lusus nodded and walked away. Karkat walked out the door and began his trek to the high school. The apartment complex was decently close to the high school. A decent fifteen minute walk for a slow paced amble. Karkat, while inconvenienced on the stride length side of things, usually could fuel his pace with spite to arrive on time. 

With time to spare, Karkat lazily sat on the ornate concrete slabs lining the staircase entrance. He ran his hand through his unkempt hair and sighed. Nepeta was across the lawn rolling aimlessly in the grass while laughing. Her distraught moirail was standing alongside her, desperately urging for her to act proper and to  _ please  _ think of the grass stains. She only continued to howl in laughter at something. Karkat sighed with exacerbation and looked off to the side at the various cars pulling into the adjacent school lots. 

A sudden touch on his shoulder made him lurch forward in surprise. His knees struck the rough concrete stairs and made him groan. Karkat whipped around, fist clenched, teeth bared in anger. He took a deep breath and prepared to unleash his furious opinion only to see Dave sitting cross legged, adjusting his sunglasses, next to where Karkat had only moment’s before rested. The blond grinned devilishly. 

“Startle easy, much? What’s got you on edge.”

“Startle?! I… fuck you!” Karkat stammered and stood up. He brushed away at his knees, one of which quivered painfully at his slight touch. His shoulders shivered briefly but he let the tension fade. 

Dave laughed. During the laugh, he lingered on a smile. “Oh, you wish. It’s entertaining to spook you but I didn’t expect a show. You really are acting strange, though.”

Karkat returned to his spot on the staircase railing. He hunched forward and looked over at Dave. 

“Just didn’t sleep very well. Haven’t this week.”

“Has it been due to the attack?” Dave asked.

“I think so… but also a guilty feeling. People were blaming me for something I clearly had no control over… right?” 

Dave’s face fell neutral. The shift in expression resulted in an ominous silence. For far too long, Dave stared forward before responding. Even the ambient noises from the periphery environment began to die off. The silence, as empty as it was, felt uneasily full with thought. 

Karkat cut the silence, allowing himself to shift from his budding irritation and frustration to a generally masked concern. “Are you-”

Dave looked at him abruptly and spoke, “Hopefully things return to normal, Karkat. If everything goes to normal, then I could be willing to agree with you. Admittedly, things may not be going so well but we may not know for a bit. If so, and things pick up for the worse, I couldn’t necessarily agree with you.” Dave seemed to contemplate for a second then shrugged. Karkat bit into his own cheek and balled a fist, disregarding the sense of concern that had taken emotional priority and reverted.

“I’m getting tired of this cryptic, pompous attitude overtaking everyone these days!” Karkat suddenly spat. He snapped his sharp teeth together, already feeling that rushing heat of adrenaline beginning to trickle through his body all over his own sensitivity and aggression. Dave took a heavy breath but only let it out without reacting. His demeanor came off as completely bizarre to Karkat, and it certainly was not helping soothe any of his concerns regarding everyone’s secretive behavior. To think he,  _ Karkat _ , was the one previously accused of acting strange!

Karkat stood up and turned away from Dave. His face began blushing with a red tint from his rising blood pressure. Dave watched him walk away and only gingerly crossed his right arm over his chest to hold onto his other arm, defensively. Karkat heard Dave offer a soft apology, unless he imagined it, but either way, didn’t acknowledge it as he let his feet march on. Nepeta gawked from the grassy lawn and patted her mouth with a sleeve pulled past her hand. She glanced at Equius before skittering up from the ground, ferally leaping over the outdoor concrete stairwell, and made way after Karkat. Her arms swung to and fro with her pace. Even at her sprinting speed and daring high jump, she was nowhere near out of breath when skidding up to Karkat by the lockers outside their homeroom. He had his locker door open, head directioned downward at the notebooks within. When Nepeta hunched to the side to peer awkwardly at Karkat’s face, he merely looked forward without moving his head. 

“Did you need something?” Karkat asked. He resumed a typical posture and shut his locker with a harsh slam. The loud clunk of the metal door made her wince away to a slight degree. She lifted a hand folded over like a paw to rub feline-like to her ear. 

“I saw you caterwauling at Dave outside. I was just wondering what was wrong, duh.” She looked at him optimistically for a glimpse of vulnerable admittance of his feelings. She held both hands now within close proximity of one another in front of her chest. 

Karkat dully looked back at her with her eyebrows low, obviously unsure what to say, but she took no suggestion of ceasing from his expression. His eyebrows suddenly raised and his eyes widened out of their annoyed shape. 

He responded, “So, you want to know what happened? Dave further implied that the recent tragedy was somehow my fault! What do you make of that?” 

Karkat paused with hope. He knew of Nepeta’s flushed desire after him. Suredly, such an obvious attack on his character would be preposterous to her and she would comfort him or even support him. He waited and watched her. Her begging stare slowly faded into a stunned gaze back at him. She audibly swallowed and tapped her wrists together before rocking back onto her heels. 

“Ah, that, you purrhaps ought to, uhh … maybe, I-I’m sorry. I think I need to go, Equihiss has my bag and I just remembered I need that.” She turned and began to flee out of the hall to return outside. Instead, Karkat latched onto her generously loose sleeve and tugged her back. 

“I ought to? I ought to  _ what _ ?” Karkat asked. 

She yanked her arm free and drew down her eyebrows. Nepeta grumbled, “Ought to wait and see. You’ll know when we know. It wouldn’t kill you to be patient for once!”

She showed her offense at his behavior and her eyes twinkled lightly under the bright lights. 

“Nepeta..” Karkat began but she walked away. 

“Maybe it would,” she said to herself, shaking her head, “maybe it would kill you. If you’ve done what we think you have, maybe it will.” 

No one else heard that. 

Begrudgingly, Karkat slung his backpack over his shoulder and felt his knee twinge.  _ Fuck, must have hurt it when I fell _ . The students were lazily sweeping by like an ocean wave, groups going in and out in a rhythm. The school’s morning warning bell resonated through the halls. Karkart walked through the hall, preoccupied in thought, as he made it to the first room of the day before the final bell. Before he got into the room, already seeing everyone taking their places, he saw none other than the gloomily lurking Aradia in the crevice between lockers across the hall from the classroom. 

“You will be late nestled down there. When did you become a slacker and be willing to be tardy?” Karkat asked.   
Aradia closed the book she was writing in. She slowly glanced up before looking away into the classroom waiting for the last students. She chuckled. With a tight smile, she spoke softly, “Alright, I’ll entertain you. But, you really must be putting effort into this as well. Do you ever notice who gets a check mark for attendance? No really, watch. Get called, answer, and a checkmark in the ledger book. I insist, entertain me back as well.”

She swiftly rose from the ground with a grace with a ghostly gazelle and assumed her seat. She had no backpack with her. Her only supplies today were the book and a single dark red gel-pen. 

“Why are you so weird?” Karkat asked, looking over at Aradia. Gamzee rotated around. 

“Talkin’ to me, bro?” The lanky clown dazedly grinned. His face had a multitude of long, obvious scratches that were covered over by white makeup. 

“Now I am. What did you do to yourself?”

He gave him a lazy finger-gun gesture, “Fought a trashcan beast thing over a Faygo I found. Big, furry, black mask-looking face fella. Had this cool tail with stripes on it. Long claws. I won.”

“You fucking idiot, you could get rabies that way!” Karkat wanted to throttle him. 

“Rabies? Whatever it is, sounds hot, my dude… heh.” 

“No!” Karkat commanded. 

Gamzee chuckled lightheartedly and shrugged him off. The teacher stood in front of the classroom and flipped through the black pleather bound ledger book. He clicked his pen a few times and stared at the clock for a few fleeting seconds before moving on to roll call per usual. By human standards, roll was determined by the individual’s last name instead of any biological determinant. As if to best fit his outwardly presented ego, Eridan always was called first. His last name was Ampora after all. The requested response was a simple  _ ‘here’  _ but of course, Eridan insisted on declaring himself  _ ‘present’  _ instead. No one cared. Thus, the list continued. Sollux, John, Harley… The teacher paused per usual at this point. He glanced at the page before sighing. Rose had been next. He continued. 

“Nepeta.”

“Meow!”

The teacher shook his head but was unsurprised. “Gamzee.”

“Yeah!” Gamzee answered. 

“Kanaya.”

“Here,” she answered with clear enunciation. Karkat looked at Aradia, who smugly looked back at him. 

“Tavros.” The teacher continued on with his list, marking each with a gentle swipe. Karkat blinked and ran over the list in his head. Had he always skipped ahead to Tavros? Of course  _ now  _ was when his inattention of menial tasks bit back. The list went along. Feferi, Terezi, Vriska, and Dave all were called and responded as expected. Karkat had always just listened for Dave to be called or, if he forgot to listen for that much, paid attention when Dave nearly shouted “yo!” with a complacent grin. 

“Here…” Karkat answered. He stared at his desk and started drawing a circle with his pencil onto the smooth, beige-pink desk. The graphite end snagged the well-worn edges in the surface. Equius answered meekly to the attendance. Karkat pushed his pencil into the scratches, waiting. Aradia wasn’t called. She wasn’t  _ called _ . He felt a sticky texture in my own throat and kept trying to swallow it in order to alleviate the obstruction, but nothing helped. Aradia stood up beside him and stared down into the desk surface. She said nothing before waltzing through the desk with an effortless ease like an unobstructed petal fluttering in the open spring breeze. Karkat started to fixate onto it. She knew something he didn’t. Everyone did! He could not deny that much. 

As Aradia removed herself from the room, she looked back tentatively. No one met her surveying gaze, seeming to stare emptily above each person’s head. She hovered her eyes briefly over Dave but tensed her eyebrows and moved on. She lingered in the doorway, casting a final gaze back. Karkat looked up and in her direction, seeing not one person object to a student leaving the room without permission. He thought she was looking back for a second but the longer he observed in the fleeting moment, he saw her leering adjacent to him at John, who sat behind her. John nervously flicked his own gaze towards her briefly but immediately looked back forward without ever moving his head. Aradia had a twitching smile growing and a raised eyebrow decorating her otherwise round face. Karkat’s hand shook while holding the pencil. Aradia left. 

A memory snapped back into focus. That day in chemistry when Eridan stopped Karkat, he had said something. “ _ Don’t talk to things that aren’t there. _ ”

It was clearer than ever Aradia was the topic of all these cryptic messages. But… she  _ was  _ there! How couldn’t she be? No one talked to her. No one mentioned her. She wasn’t even mentioned by her own teacher in roll call.  _ Could no one else see her? _

Karkat increased the pressure on the pencil’s graphite tip. He felt shaky as he continued thinking. 

He was the only one who talked to her. She only talked to him. He never really considered them that close to have a nearly exclusive conversational relationship. It was absurd.  _ Is everyone too afraid to talk about Aradia? Was that why people clammed up? Why, would they… unless it was a sore subject _ . 

A little pile a dust began to build. 

_ Why would Aradia be a sore subject? Wow, even Sollux never acknowledged her! _ Karkat glanced at the four horned troll. It was even more absurd to realize that.  _ She could be a sore subject if, perhaps _ … Karkat continued conspiracizing.  _ No one will mention Aradia because- _

The pencil tip broke and flung up from the sheer force pressing down on it. The low quality wood blossomed outwards as it collided into the hard desktop. 

_ Aradia is dead! She is a ghost and only I can see her! _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KILL YOUR CONSCIENCE by Shinedown


	6. God's Gonna Cut You Down

Lunch had ended and it was becoming more evident to Karkat that he should have forced himself to eat despite the unsettled chills because as he stared down at a tattered classroom copy of  _ Slaughterhouse-Five, or  _ _ The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death _ by Kurt Vonnegut with the large plum V across the cover, his stomach started to growl. Including English, there were three periods left in the day to suffer through. Food would not be soon. A series of ideas of what would be fulfilling to nosh on flitted by in his mind, but Karkat knew it would be pointless dwelling on it as he would only tease himself further in hunger. 

Everyone but Aradia was in the class. After lunch, she walked off in the courtyard where many liked to gather after eating and never came back inside when the concluding bell rang. He knew he had seen her that morning, so it only proved to worsen his anxiety over his new conclusion with her missing and it not being questioned. He glanced at her typical seat. It was, as he expected, as empty as his stomach. His stomach growled again. 

“Dude, I can literally hear your stomach growling,” Dave mentioned. The English room had rows of desks that seated six with an aisle down the center. Two chairs across from each other with a single chair on the two ends. The teacher determined this best for group book discussions, but it mostly allowed the students with their backs to the teacher to ignore the lesson. Dave sat next to Karkat with the inseparable Nepeta and Equius across from them, not that Equius wanted to be at that table, but he couldn’t let Nepeta down when she begged. Terezi sat to Karkat’s left in the single seat and the other single was John to Dave’s side. Karkat and Dave of course took the side that let them ignore the teacher. 

Karkat glanced over to Dave. “Shut up. It’s not obvious.”

“Yeah, it is, I’ve got to listen to that and the teacher now,” Terezi chimed in. 

“You don’t count. Your hearing is better than others’ so of course you can hear it.” Karkat looked over his shoulder towards the teacher’s desk. The teacher, a middle aged human woman with medium blonde hair and thin purple framed glasses, continued to look down at her desk while grading a stack of papers. He looked back to Terezi. 

“Well duh, but if the human with the lame human level ability hearing can hear it, then yes, it is loud.” Terezi grinned and pointed her bright neon fuschia gel pen in Karkat’s general direction. 

“She’s got a point,” Dave admitted. 

“Mhmm, I have some snacks if you want some.” Nepeta reached into her bulky coat. Karkat, against his best judgement, let himself be interested in the offer. She handed him a baggy full of crumbled up dry cat food and what was likely beef jerky all mixed into one like a feral Chex Mix. Karkat stared at the offering and couldn’t bring himself to take it. 

“Thanks for the offer but…” He started.

Equius stared down at the bag of poor nutrition and chunks of meat. He shook his head and spoke to Nepeta, “You shouldn’t have food like that out in the classroom. Put it away. Besides, Karkat clearly doesn’t want it.”

“If he doesn’t then I will have to just eat it myself,” Nepeta beamed while she began to open the ziploc bag. 

“No! No you will not. Put it away,” Equius whispered insistently. 

She froze for a moment and squinted. After thinking over it, she resealed the bag and put it away. “Killjoy,” she murmured with a slight humored smirk. 

“I’m not a killjoy,” Equius objected, “I kill nothing, not even joy.”

“Pfft,” Nepeta responded and stuck out her tongue. 

Karkat sighed. The hours left in the day seemed all too many. 

The final bell sounded like a gloried hallelujah. Karkat whisked himself out of the room and down the hallways, rushing to his locker in order to get out as fast as he could. Surely, he and his lusus could think something easy up to eat. On the way out, he caught sight of Aradia looming by the popular doorway most kids exit through. When she saw him, she lifted up the notebook she had been writing in recently and waved it at him. He swallowed. 

“Aradia?” he asked when he approached her. They were far from alone as the general crowd of the student body droned on around them. The doors were used back to back without time to close. She nodded. 

“Yes? You have something to ask me?”

“I, yes, I think I do. Do you want to talk somewhere more private?” 

Aradia lifted one eyebrow and then shrugged, “Well, school is over. We might as well start walking if you want. Do you consider that private enough?” 

Karkat paused, then agreed. They began on their way home, parting the doors and slipping through the chattering crowds on the staircase outside. Aradia skimmed over the crowd, seemingly searching for something. Whatever it was, she shook her head and shrugged again. She held the notebook up in her hands and teased opening it before glancing at Karkat and letting it go back to dangling in her hand at her side. 

“What is that book anyway? I didn’t peg you as one of those diary snobbish types,” Karkat stuffed his hands into his pocket. Aradia laughed softly. 

“I consider it far from a diary. A schedule if you will. So far, about five different schedules, only one of which has… passed. Some come and go, it keeps changing,” she carefully grinned an ominous smile and tilted her head to the side, letting the sun light up her face. 

“Schedules, like a secretary?” Karkat asked.

“A secretary? No, more like… a prophet, of course nothing compared to Sollux’s voices or anything,” she looked over at the aforementioned troll fondly when she said it. She gave a soft sigh and let her shoulder show an emotional burden as it drooped. Her eyes gently wavered, clearly distraught in some way but Karkat couldn’t place it. After looking at her, he followed her gaze over to the other trolls on the walkway. Sollux, who stood near Eridan, beamed at the sea-dweller with a humorously proud smug aura radiating from him and, in opposition, Eridan had an equally obvious embarrassment written all over his face in a radiant royal violet blush. Eridan crossed his arms and turned away, in which he caught Karkat and Aradia looking over in their direction. The embarrassment fizzled quickly into a furious glare back at Karkat. A subtle flick of the eye from Eridan in Aradia’s direction made Karkat pause.  _ Did he see her? He seems easily angry with me these days.  _ Sollux looked over and stopped smiling himself. He looked down quickly then sharply punched Eridan’s arm, drawing attention back to him. After that, Aradia ducked her head down and hastily walked down the stairs and away from the school. Karkat followed along. 

“So, disregarding that other… whatever you said, did something happen between you and everyone else before you… well… did anything…” Karkat began to stammer trying to steady his thoughts. The anxiety returned but he tried to maintain his cool. He was met with silence. The silence lingered and itched until they had walked nearly the entire street and turned away. 

“Nothing ‘happened’ or anything. Now, what did you want to discuss privately?” Aradia spoke with a low voice. She was blunt. 

Karkat’s step faltered. “During roll, I paid attention like you told me to.”

“Uh huh?” She waited. 

“You didn’t get called.”

“Uh huh.” Aradia raised her eyebrows, eager for him to catch onto her message. 

“So, I figured it out. No one notices you,” he began. Sollux’s face drifted by in his thoughts followed by the quick, darting glance of Eridan’s at Aradia, “or at least I thought so. No one talks about you. And I get in trouble each time I try to or talk to you…”

“Yes, and you are so amazingly poor at following people’s helpful advice,” Aradia laughed. 

Karkat felt a moment of defensiveness rise within him, but he pushed on, “I understand now because-”  
“You do? Really? Late for it, but I’m glad you caught on.”

“-you are a ghost!” Karkat couldn’t help but raise his voice at the announcement. 

Aradia opened her mouth but only took a long inhale. Her eyebrows dipped down while she looked off and away. Her eyes were momentarily vacant from the sheer stupidity. Her jaw slightly grinded side to side with her lips tight before she looked back to Karkat. 

“I’m a what now?”

“A ghost- I, sorry, is that not right?” He looked down at the floor, everything he had been so sure of just an hour ago slipping away from him like a cascading mudslide. 

“I’m not a ghost,” she assured him sternly, “the only ghost- listen, I told you to pay attention and you did. But you did not pick up what I wanted you to. Maybe it is a lost cause and for the sake of it, just explaining it all is so tedious and boring, I cannot bring myself to do it. I would never have done what I have done now if it would turn out to be just telling you and moving on. You truly are a moron, and I mean that in a miraculously amazed way.”

“So,” Karkat clarified, “I’m not the only one who can see you?”

“Obviously.” Aradia kicked a small, smooth rock out of her path. It bounced a ways away and when she came back upon it, she flung it into the street with an artful twist of her foot. It bounced into the street as a large shipping truck barreled past. The rock caught under the tire and whizzed back towards them, nearly striking Karkat in the face. The truck, unaffected, continued rumbling down the road, snaking along the ditch that paved the way, and disappeared off into the distance towards the industrial complex. 

“Damn trucks.”

“They are awfully scary sometimes, but more accurately would be ‘damn rocks’ considering I kicked the rock and the rock is what came back on you,” Aradia cheerfully commented. 

“More like ‘damn you’ for kicking the rock,” Karkat mumbled and touched his face in reassurance to ensure the rock really didn’t strike him. Aradia laughed. 

“But no, everyone else can see me. They do not want to though. They don’t want to pay attention or acknowledge me. That’s not smart for them. If they couldn’t see me, then why would Kanaya and Eridan have been so mad seeing you talking to me? Do you think people get mad for others talking to the air?” Aradia asked. 

He considered. “I guess that is true… but why?”  
“Why? Oh not this. I’m not telling you.” Aradia torted. She glanced down the street corner, “This is my stop too. See you tomorrow.”

Karkat sighed and began to walk away. Aradia turned away but suddenly whipped back around and fixated at him. She squinted then let up on the look. For one more time that day, she shrugged.

“Yes,” she said, mostly to herself, “I will see you tomorrow.”

Karkat swallowed uneasily and went on his way. 

Once entering the living room, Karkat flung his bag off to the side onto the furnished couch and wandered into the kitchen. His lusus cheerfully clicked and whistled before waving a large white claw towards the shelves on the wall. Mostly there were cans of cheap spaghetti noodles and off-brand tomato and spices sauce. He shrugged and poked his bottom lip with his sharp upper teeth.

“Yeah, that will be fine.” 

His lusus carefully attempted to grab a can, gently denting it on both sides, before setting it down with a thunk on the marble top. 

“I’ll get it, don’t worry. I was looking forward to an early supper actually.”

His lusus let out a soft screech and tilted his head towards Karkat.

“Yes, I didn’t eat. It’s not that important, just got distracted is all.”

With a sadder screech and a click, his lusus tapped Karkat on the shoulder and lumbered out into the living room. As the lusus left, quieter, annoyed clicking began to echo. Karkat rolled his eyes.  _ It is not that big of a deal I didn’t eat. And he’s seriously irritated that I am cooking instead? He’d break the noodles. Crabby.  _

Karkat looked at the shelves. Noodles. Sauce on the counter. Pot? One sat on the dish rack to dry. Ladle? One sat next to the pot.  _ Maybe I have made too much spaghetti.  _

The pot didn’t hold much water as it was closer to a saucepan than a pot but it served its purpose enough. He turned on the burner and set the pot now full of water onto it. Once it rested on the metal grate over the gas stove, a knock rang out. Karkat looked around, silently pausing, but heard nothing more than his lusus beginning to rustle about. Nothing else was heard. After watching the pot for a moment, he turned to the fridge and opened the small freezer door at the top. He pulled an ice cube tray out and popped two of the cubes out, not that it contained actual ice cubes but instead frozen roe. He turned them over in his palm and walked out into the living room to give his moping crabdad his favorite snack. 

His lusus was towering by the doorway, door wide open. Karkat raised an eyebrow and slowly tilted his head to peek around. His lusus was trying to communicate but was failing, so he turned towards Karkat and angrily clicked and jabbed his claws towards the door. 

“Hey, I didn’t know I was going to get a guest, cool it. Here,” Karkat tossed the roe cubes in the lusus’ direction, which were eagerly snapped out of the air. When stepping away, the doorway revealed a slightly sweaty and tired Dave Strider. 

Karkat stood still in confusion. “Dave? Why are you here?”  
“I need to come in.” Dave straightened his glasses and tried to flatten down his hair where it began to frizz. 

“S-sure, I guess. I was just uhh making spaghetti,” Karkat scratched the back of his neck and nervously glanced away. 

“Classy. A real Olive Garden, huh? Got the breadsticks to match?” Dave uneasily laughed but then dropped it and walked inside, slowly gazing about the place. 

“Breadsticks? No, I don’t. I think we could order some from somewhere,” Karkat felt inadequate suddenly, “unless you weren’t serious about that.”

Dave seemed to consider it, “You know what, I think I’ll think about that. Thinking, pondering, whimsically daydreaming, letting my mind wander adrift over the complex and subjected value of ordering breadsticks to match this lovely Italian supper.”

Karkat blinked and looked down at the ground, noticing Dave’s shoes, which typically had a pristine white shine at the toes where he polished the converse’s rubber decals. His heart felt like it skipped a beat as Karkat noticed a smudge of a dark red liquid across the inner soles and over the top left shoe. The lower most portions appeared wiped away and given Dave’s appearance must’ve been from running. 

“Are you okay?” Karkat asked without looking up. Dave followed Karkat’s eyes in the direction of the floor only to also notice the stains on his shoe. 

“Uh, I’m okay. Yes, I am okay,” Dave’s hand trembled slightly and he swung the foot adorned with the stained shoe back behind the other. He took a shallow breath and grinned. 

“I clarify, is someone… not okay?” Karkat insisted.

Dave shuddered and his facade began to falter. He twisted his head away then brought it back while swaying where he stood, “Truthfully no. That’s why I came here immediately. I saw and I just ran.”

Karkat’s eyes widen in surprise and fear, the worst racing through his thoughts. “What? Dave tell me right now what happened!”

Dave hesitated. 

“Dave, if that is blood on your shoe, you better speak up this second or I will thrash you.”

Dave wiped away at the moist sweat beading under his hairline with his sleeve. He sighed, “I went home after school. That’s not out of the ordinary. When I got to my door, I noticed it was still unlocked from this morning. I just never lock it when I leave because Bro is still inside so why bother locking it? Except Bro always locks the door when he finally starts getting up and around like two hours after I leave. You see he’s paranoid someone will break in and steal those damn swords and puppets of his, as if someone in their right mind really wants the godforsaken puppets. I would dare say the puppets are why any god has abandoned us. Honestly the swords are the only thing that makes sense to steal. Maybe any of the other blades or sharp objects, too-” 

“Dave!”

“Okay! So, it was unlocked. Which is weird. I opened the door. There wasn’t any sound. No shout, no hello, no  _ fuck off _ . It was just… not right. I walked in. I didn’t see anything or hear anything out of the ordinary. But then I got to the kitchen.” Dave dragged out the word and peered over at the kitchen behind Karkat, listening briefly to the sound of boiling water beginning to tease spilling over. Karkat’s lusus jumped up from the couch and hustled towards the sound, arms in the air. Dave registered it for a second then continued, “Well, it was everywhere. The blood. I don’t know what happened, I really don’t. He, y’know, Bro, was laying in this ocean of blood. At first I wondered if it was some prank or a joke, which was cruel enough to expect, but I saw where metal was sticking out from his skin and where it cut through his shirt like as if the Devil was playing darts but really bad at aiming. He laid there, facing away from where I stood, mostly lying prone, just so still. Those shades of his were in two pieces far away from where he laid. That’s why I thought it wasn’t fake; I couldn't see him breaking those like that. When I looked at them I saw where the blood smeared a few feet back towards the appliance’s wall as if he dragged himself along the floor before resting there. The microwave was just… obliterated. There was shrapnel on the floor and in the walls. I saw where a knife must’ve gone airborne and… I think it was the kill strike. I know he was facing away and I didn’t investigate in detail but… it was just  _ in there _ . In his neck. The black hilt jutted out but the blade sank firmly in right past the throat.” Dave touched the spot on his own neck. He shook his head and took a fast breath and continued. “I turned and ran. I ran here. Bro is dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God's Gonna Cut You Down by Marilyn Manson (a Johnny Cash cover).


	7. Free Fallin'

Karkat peered down over the edge of the school staircase. Dave stood there beside him to the left. For a while, it felt like a silent hell. The entire past week had been awkward. Dave brought all of what he considered important over to where Karkat lived but occasionally went home with John instead to stay the night, mostly to have a more competent and appetizing dinner. One thing John’s house was good at was the culinary arts. That was something Karkat fell short at. 

“Are you coming home with me again tonight?” Karkat asked. 

Dave let his backpack sling on a single shoulder before nudging his sunglasses back up onto his nose where gravity tugged at them. He shifted his shoulders and looked over as he rested his weight on the railing. 

“Yeah.” 

“Do you want to talk about it yet? It’s been a week.” Karkat asked. Last week, after arriving uninvited, Karkat and his lusus managed to persuade Dave into reporting the death of his brother. Once called in, two officers arrived at the door and escorted Dave away. About five hours later, he reappeared at Karkat’s abode cleaned up with a large duffle bag of essential items. When asked, Dave merely insisted to be allowed to sleep and move on. Karkat went to his own bedroom and left the human alone, but he couldn’t deny the curiosity that tapped away at his thoughts. Dave tended to find refuge with John instead whenever the topic tended to be brought up. People asked at school but Dave typically gave an unrealistic exaggeration and walked away. 

“What happened?” Dave reiterated. He squinted. 

“At your house that night.”  
Dave looked down and stretched his arms out onto the railing. Karkat leaned forward with him. 

“I do suppose I owe you some sort of explanation considering I haunt your quaint abode now. Alright… They, the authorities, made me identify the scene, the body… tell my story. I packed up. They let me leave and go where I wanted afterward. There were some papers I had to sign and stuff about funerals since I am now the next of kin to decide that stuff. He had life insurance. Did you expect that idiot to have life insurance?” 

“Life insurance?”

Dave paused, “It is like… a subscription of being alive so when you expire, your investments go towards paying for your disposal. It helps the next in line pay for funeral stuff. His last payment was only a few days ago before August ended. He also left instruction on his final wishes for burial, not that I have to follow it.”  
“Why not?” Karkat gently asked.

“He wanted his body to be decapitated and strung up in a ‘sky burial’ where vultures would eat him and carry his body parts across the city. So logically, I signed up for cremation to set him on fire. Maybe I have been avoiding the topic because I know the ashes are going to be coming in soon and I don’t know what to do with them. Maybe a sky burial would have been easier.” 

“I don’t think sky burials are really allowed around here…” 

Dave shook his head, “Realistically, it would only serve to be both a pest, a burden, and a source of trauma.”

Karkat huffed and shifted his weight on the rail before feeling it budge forward with a creak. He lifted himself away as Dave did so as well. 

“So much for fine workmanship. Incompetent shmucks. Can’t nail a rail back on right? What budget does this school have on repairs? The number of pennies and dimes they can find in the lot?” Dave torted. 

“Hey!” A voice shouted. Karkat looked to his right and then behind him. The second-floor hallway stretched out towards a nearby lounge with a few vending machines. He saw Aradia standing there before ducking out of sight behind the wall. Dave glanced towards Karkat. 

“Uh, no, I’m ignoring that. I’m not getting involved in this,” Dave mumbled before glaring at Karkat, “Although, I dare say it is too late on that.”

“Not  _ this _ ,” Karkat groaned. 

“I’ll tell you tonight if I remember.” Dave tramped down the stairs. 

Karkat hesitated before turning around and going towards Aradia. She loosely brushed her hair over her shoulder and smiled. 

“You and Dave look amazingly well and thriving this morning.”

“Well, consider that a facade,” Karkat corrected her. 

“A facade?” Aradia’s eyebrows peaked. She tilted her head slightly and leaned in, “Do explain.”

“Sorry, I guess no one knows about it.”

Aradia waved her hand to indicate continuation. Karkat felt like he was crossing a line telling her instead of Dave but he continued like requested. 

“Dave’s brother died last night. He was killed in an explosion.”

Aradia gasped, “His brother, you say?”

Karkat nodded. 

She mulled that information over before nodding. She tapped her fingers together. “That is a relationship, being family. So Dave  _ was  _ next,” Aradia clapped with a bright smile, “it just wasn’t  _ him _ ! What a relief!” 

Karkat felt a rush of anger at the implication of Dave dying. Before he knew what he was doing, he lunged forward and grabbed Aradia by the sweater, letting his sharp nails dig into the soft woven fibers and clench down. He shoved her back into the wall and growled. 

“The  _ fuck  _ did you say? Dave  _ next _ ? Are you threatening him? Do you  _ want  _ him to die?” Karkat snarled, baring his teeth and scrunching up his nose. Aradia’s eyes were wide as she grabbed his hands at her chest. She blinked rapidly and shook her head. 

“No! No, I didn’t wish anything on him! Listen, I knew someone was… I was glad because I know when-” Aradia began. 

Karkat peered deeper into her face but as he listened, he felt a strong force yank him back. He let go of Aradia in shock. His breath hitched. Aradia’s eyes wavered before she turned to her right and barreled down the hallway. Karkat switched his attention rapidly from Aradia’s departure to his nonconsensual movement. Whipping his head around, Karkat’s eyes met a delicate violet fabric and knew exactly he’d see if he peered upwards. 

Eridan shook Karkat slightly then let go. Karkat’s footing failed him and he slipped, crashing down onto the ground. He wiped the dust from his knees and swung his arms out, hooked, in an offensive pose as if ready to strike. Perhaps, out of habit, he grasped at the air for his strifekind, but found nothing. The shorter troll felt himself falter when his hands grabbed at only air. He shook his head. Rapidly standing up and feeling a faint dizzying rush overcome him from the jolt, Karkat sneered. 

“Are you completely deaf now, oppositional, or simply moronic? You can’t figure out how to listen to Kan. Couldn’t listen to me either? How hard is it for you? Can’t wrap your head around following an order?!” Eridan snapped at Karkat. The violet blood sneered back at the other with sharp teeth shining. Karkat growled back in his defense. 

“Get off your holier than thou pedestal and talk to me with an ounce of sense! What you said is what makes no sense. No one has ordered me to do anything and I am certainly not taking an order from a walking fish.” Karkat balled a fist. 

“Me not making sense? What you are doing is making no sense! Sorry, I take things like magic, curses, and the supernatural seriously. Furthermore, you were asked not to do something. Many people have,” Eridan ground his teeth for a moment and wavered, “Fine, it may not have been direct and clear but we were all rooting on you to put the hints together and I just want to say that I sorely despise putting faith in someone besides myself. I thought maybe at the beginning it was early enough to catch, but now? We really are doomed, aren’t we?” 

Karkat continued to raise his fist to strike out of anger but as he looked at Eridan’s face and caught a glimpse of his eyes. Eridan looked genuinely afraid. When Karkat softened in his gaze, Eridan’s features sharpened. 

Eridan spoke once more, “You aren’t that stupid, you know. If something doesn’t add up, you need to be figuring it out instead of whatever you are doing.” 

“Something not adding up like a grown-up troll like yourself believing in ghosts and, what else did you say, curses?” Karkat jabbed, albeit cringing internally at himself at the mention of ghosts considering he had just convinced himself Aradia had been one. He tried to smirk but instead only twitched. 

Eridan shook his head. 

“Speaking of ghosts…” Karkat laughed at himself, trying to clear the air. Eridan raised a well-groomed brow at Karkat. As Eridan stood there, he unconsciously began smoothing out his outfit and straightening the rings on his fingers.

“Speaking of ghosts?” Eridan asked curiously. 

Sollux and Feferi walked by. Feferi waived innocently, to which Karkat flicked his wrist back at. She smiled over at the two of them. Sollux yawned and pushed his glasses up on his face. 

“What do we have here?” Feferi bubbled happily. 

Eridan looked at the two and backed off, “Nothing.”  
“For nothing, you look awfully serious,” Sollux smiled. 

“Anyway, did you want to say something?” Eridan reminded Karkat.

He softly gasped, “Oh! Yeah speaking of ghosts. I almost convinced myself Aradia was one.”

Everyone closed their mouths and what happened spiraled out of control before anyone opened their mouths again. Eridan had reeled back a fist and crashed it into Karkat’s face the moment it hung in the air that Karkat had mentioned Aradia. Karkat felt his neck crackle and pop from swinging to the side, not that it broke, but instead like a chiropractor’s swift and precise snap. Karkat stumbled back towards the stairway but, thankful, hit the railed with a thud as he went down. The railing budged worryingly from his weight but did not break away. Blood started to rush through Karkat’s body with fire and confusion. His lip ached. 

“The fuck was that!” Karkat screamed when he looked up but to his dismay, all had already begun to clear out in panic. The last person he saw was Feferi standing at the end of the hallway, hands clasped anxiously while looking at him, before Sollux’s arm reached out from behind the corner and grabbed her by the wrist to tug her out of sight. 

He knew, for one thing, Eridan was not getting away with this. 

Of course, perhaps this was what Karkat got for being at school so early. Dave wanted to get out of the house and seek distraction, so both of them had come nearly twenty minutes before the warning bell. Now, as Karkat collected himself partially from the floor, he regretted still having ten minutes to go. The second floor was rarely occupied early in the morning. The other areas like the lounge, stairwells, and courtyard attracted the early birds. Only a few other people were on the floor now, all not involved in the drama. Most of the human students tended to veer away from the trolls. The only humans hovering around the scene were certainly avoidant, especially with the fear of the trollian tendency towards violence. To Karkat’s right, the hallway opened up to a few tables and soft, cloth fabric chairs where a handful of students relaxed. That was when Karkat noticed two familiar humans coming up the nearby, adjacent stairwell down the end of the hall. Dave, no longer carrying his backpack, was flanked by none other than John. John held a docile grin and continued to pat Dave’s shoulder, undoubtedly performing some sense of comfort. 

With the thought of looking weak, Karkat immediately made himself rise from the ground on unsteady legs but saw the room go blurry with the far-too-soon action. He clambered for a second before going down once more. At the commotion, Dave looked over, and after a moment of confused alarm, he and John made way over with haste. 

“Hey! You okay?” John asked. He immediately crouched down to Karkat, who rubbed his face in an attempt to ground himself mentally.

“Me? Why wouldn’t I… I just,” Karkat began, “am unsteady is all. Eridan punched me in the face, that arrogant prick.”

John bounced slightly in surprise, “Really? Why would he do that?” 

“Yeah, the hell did you two get into in the five minutes I left you alone?” Dave added in. 

John reached out for Karkat to take his hand. At the moment, Karkat begrudgingly agreed to the niceties and took the aid. John rested a hand on the railing overseeing the flight of stairs before leveraging himself up. Karkat stood up, already feeling better. He sighed. As they stood back up, John stepped over his own foot and twisted himself around. As it all went on, the trio continued to talk. 

“Eridan got his gills in a twist because I was talking to Aradia,” Karkat groaned. Dave blinked. 

John squeaked in surprise at the mention of Aradia. Along with the noise, both Karkat and Dave saw the panic and fear overwhelm the black-haired teen’s face because as Karkat finished his sentence, the railing made a terrible creak before giving away. In less than a second, while John gasped, ready to scream, and as Dave desperately grabbed out to secure his close friend, they all watched in horror as John fell through the railing and plunged. John reached out to no avail as he whizzed down. With no time to cry out, the boy crashed into the last few of the steps underneath where the stairs spiraled up with each flight. The metal handrail struck John’s head and, with a sickening snap, he fell still at the bottom. He lay slumped there, glasses fallen out of place, left dully staring out into what appeared to be nothing. John’s eyes relaxed almost shut. A dark trickle began to seep from his nose and gently caress where his mouth froze halfway open and lax. The blood dripped down onto his shirt and steady pooled into the colorful fabric. The left shoulder stuck out at an odd angle where it struck the ground. In all, like a broken doll, he simply laid there motionless in a heap. 

“John!” Dave shouted. As he tore from his spot, Karkat could hear the screaming begin. All the witnesses downstairs began skittering and screaming in fear at the sight of the boy spilling blood from his face and lay unmoving after a fall. 

“ _ John _ !” Dave screamed as he descended the stairs, stumbling a few, and falling to his knees beside his friend. Dave touched John’s face warily, looking for a sign of response or awareness. At the very least, Dave hoped that John was merely dazed. “John, c’mon, look at me.”

Dave grabbed John’s arm, eyeing the blood on his face, and began to breathe faster with each heartbeat. A girl with long, fluffy black hair swooped down into Dave’s view and grabbed him by the wrist. 

“Dave stop!” The girl shouted. Dave shook, breath and heart running faster than a hare. He blinked, letting the building moisture in his eyes dissipate. He wasn’t sure at the moment if he was crying or in shock. The girl insisted, “Dave, don’t shake him!”

“Jade?” Dave asked softly, starting to come back to reality. 

“Yes, Dave. Let me check for vitals please. Don’t move him. Now back off and let me check,” she explained as she started to feel over his neck and onto his inner wrists. She moved with haste and a reeled-in sense of panic herself, but she was focused. “Don’t ever move someone who could have spine or neck injuries. You could… worsen it.” 

She went quiet and rested John’s right hand down over his chest. She sniffled with tears welling up in her eyes. Dave stared. She started to rock and sway her head back and forth. 

“No, no, I have to be wrong!” She rushed back through the entire checklist. Heartbeat, breathing, heartbeat, breathing… and there was no response to any of it. As she ran it over, she smeared John’s blood over her hands from moving so quickly around his face. She started to cry, letting the tears roll off her beautiful, long eyelashes and markup the inner side of her glasses. The ridge of her nose and upper cheeks flushed a dark red and her eyes betrayed her with puffiness as she began sobbing. Dave, exposed to the raw intensity of his friend dead at his fingertips and other friend sobbing, he couldn’t help but hiccup a sniffle or two as well. His emotions were still interwoven too tightly with horror and shock to be filled with sorrow like Jade. They both lamented. 

Dave shuddered, jaw shaking, before bellowing into the crowd, “What are you all just standing there for? Call someone! 911! An ambulance, something!” His voice broke. 

Karkat, still standing from up above, felt like he couldn’t move. A cold, dreadful feeling washed over him. Rose, Dave’s Bro, and now John? What was happening with all these humans dying over just two months? 

The world was eerily quiet the next week. Classes went like a blur. Dave never spoke to Karkat about what he intended to explain. Honestly, Dave felt just too off-put by the topic to worry about it. Kids tended to veer out of the path of anyone in Karkat’s homeroom when in the hallway. They would all part like the sea. Each night was cold and dreary with a lamentful, solemn Dave locked up in the spare room and Karkat feeling oddly alone in the house despite being used to only him and his crabdad around. The hours crawled through the day and dripped through time like sludge. It was the date that scared them all. John’s funeral was at the end of the unwanted week, after all. 

When Sunday ended, Karkat knew he had to face it. Monday night was the funeral. Most of the group decided to leave school at the halfway mark in order to ready themselves for the event. Kanaya and Jade left early to go get personal lunches and get ready together. The two found comfort together recently. With Rose’s death still close at heart and Jade’s recent trauma over handling John’s body the day he fell, they seemed to bond over death. Death was not something unfamiliar to either of them, of course. Death for some came like a fond friend and others like a pestilent neighbor they couldn’t shrug off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Free Fallin' by Tom Petty
> 
> I tried rather hard to space out things but I had a rather hard time trying to think of "filler" for Dave and Karkat over that week.


	8. Funeral For A Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)

Lunch ended. Everyone went on their way while the few still left at school for the day hung around in the main hallways. Dave already dressed up that morning. His suit was a velveteen black with crisp red and white accents. His pale blond hair was tamed down and brushed through. Karkat donned a new dark grey sweater with a bunched turtle-neck and elastic cuffs on the sleeve. It had only been them, Karkat and Dave, and a few of the trolls left. Kanaya and Jade were already departed. Equius made Nepeta go home around noon as well to force her into showering and grooming her hair for the night. Karkat hadn’t seen Vriska. Vriska had never exactly been well versed in the art of showcasing emotions. On one hand, John’s death did give her an excuse to leave school early and run amuck, but on the other, of all people, John was easily her least hated human. Tavros, Feferi, Eridan, and Sollux were waiting out a couple more classes before leaving. Although it was within reason, there wasn’t much justification for them to leave early and miss class. Gamzee was still there, mostly waiting on a transportation opportunity with Karkat and Dave.

Time seemed to hesitate. 

So, they stood there, Dave and Karkat, in the main hallway outside the cafeteria where the major office building rooms were lined up at the end. Dave thumbed through his phone, pausing to adjust his glasses as they slipped momentarily from staring down too long. Karkat looked down the hall both ways before clearing his throat. 

Dave glanced up, still gripping his phone, thumb suspended mid drag across the screen. 

“Are we just… going to stand here?” Karkat asked. 

“Where else do we have to go?” Dave responded. 

Karkat twitched his eyebrow, “The, uhh…”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Dave started, “I know where we have to go. What’s the use of piddling about early? Time to dawdle about in our thoughts? Get lost in a metaphorical, one-sided debate in the silence about what it means to live a happy life? How to die fulfilled at such a young age? No, I don’t plan on staying here much longer, but I can’t say I’m necessarily in a hurry to be trapped in the funeral parlor with everyone else.” He adjusted his collar. 

Karkat glanced down at his feet. 

“Do you want to leave now?” Dave asked. 

“I really don’t know what I want to do. Everything just feels _off_ anymore.”

Dave huffed, “Off, huh?” He stared down at the phone, but he wasn’t truly looking at anything but the ongoing reflection of the phone screen and his sunglasses mirroring one another, swirling into smaller versions of the other until gone.

“This is the first time I’ve had to go to one of these human-funerals,” Karkat tugged on his sleeve, waiting for Dave to stop being oddly flat in his responses. He gritted his teeth when Dave merely hummed a sound, staring into the phone screen.

“For three down and more to go, I suppose you were bound to have to go to one eventually,” Dave finally said quietly. He hadn’t had any service for his brother. He didn’t see a point anyway. As for Rose… what was there to do anything for?

“Excuse me?” Karkat felt his pulse quicken. His nails snagged into the cuff on his sleeve as he gripped it, “More to come? What are you _suggesting_? What are you _implying_!” 

Karkat burned his gaze toward Dave, displaying anger but really hiding a trembling sense of fear. More to come? Dave could not be implying he was planning to die next! Karkat jumped further into his conclusion, imagining his friend dead, forever gone. He almost felt cold panic. 

Karkat stuttered at first, “You better not be saying you would-“

“Cool it, cool it. I’m not going to Ophelia myself into some autumn-morning pond out of heartache. I’m just… damn, Karkat… you really have not figured this cursed situation out have you? That’s… really unsettling and sad. Fuck, I didn’t tell you last week when I meant to.” Dave let his hand go slack and put his phone in his pocket. 

The memory of the day John died blurred through his thoughts. In the moment, Karkat remembered Dave walking away down the stairs. _I’ll tell you tonight if I remember._ He clearly hadn’t.

“You may have suggested you wanted to tell me something… uhh before John died. You said you’d tell me it if you remembered.”

Dave put his hand on his cheek and suddenly clenched his nails into his skin before letting go, “God _damnit_ , John… Fucking curse intervened then. It made me forget, or no, it distracted me that day.”

“Curse?” Karkat whispered.

Dave’s pale-toned face suddenly begin to flush red with anger as he snapped, “For absolute fuck’s sake, are you dumber than a brick wall? Has none of _this_ ,” Dave motioned in a rage in a circle towards various areas of the school building, “stood out to you as bizarre? Like maybe something was _wrong_? Kids outside our home room literally _talk_ about it. We just can’t. No! I take that back!” He pointed angrily at Karkat. 

“ _We_ weren’t supposed to. All of us. You burned that bridge when you got to it. No, no, I insist now, we _should_ talk about it. It’s over. Full swing now.” Dave started to raise his voice. Karkat took a few steps back, surprised completely. Dave wasn’t like this. He’d never gotten this aggressive before let alone in public at Karkat. 

Dave’s phone started ringing. When he reeled back and took his sleek-cased phone out of his pocket, Karkat noticed the budding tears on his friend’s eyelashes as Dave turned to the side to lean against the wall and answer it. 

“Hey, Jade… yeah… yes we are coming. I guess now. See you.” Dave clicked the red hang-up button. “Not over.” He pointed swiftly at Karkat, “And this time, I am not forgetting. We have a funeral to attend to first.”

The funeral parlor’s sound system was decently high-quality. Even at the low level of volume, the somber drone of the music remained crisp throughout the entire main room. The guest book at the front of the building was quickly filling with signatures as various members of the school cycled through. These first few hours were for the wake. After the public viewing was past, then they would have to sit through the service. Service, then burial site. Of course, usually there was some sort of spiel there too. Karkat couldn’t remember the name of the place, but he was assured that he didn’t need to. Most of them were planning to carpool during the procession to the burial anyway. There were perhaps about five cars between them all, not counting the extended family and other human attendees who were in it. The hearse already sat prepared outside the front doors, parked next to an ornate marble column that held up the extended carport where it sat. A tiny purple flag whipped in the breeze atop the vehicle. Every vehicle intended to proceed with it matched with their own tiny purple flag. 

As Karkat stared at them from inside the parlor’s doorway, he briefly pondered stealing one. For what purpose? None. Something simply seemed enticing about keeping the tiny triangular thing. 

One thing was for sure, if Karkat had to listen to one more person solemnly declare “thank you for coming” as a person walked through the door, he may scream. 

Gamzee suddenly patted Karkat’s shoulder. 

“Hey, man, you going to stare out that doorway this whole time? You seem deep in thought, but most people are staring the other way deep in thought.”

“I don’t want to,” Karkat admitted, “It feels weird. A body on display just to be cried over. If it’s so sad, then why do it?”

Gamzee shrugged. “Dunno, but I know people think you are the door greeter, so let’s leave the doorway alone, alright? It doesn’t need company. You need company, my guy.”

“No, I don’t,” Karkat grumbled.

“Yeah huh, you’re sad, man,” Gamzee poked him, gazing down at Karkat, “your whole sad vibe is filling the space. It’s sad enough. How come?”

 _Well,_ Karkat thought, _someone is dead and it hurts someone I care about. On top of that, I feel guilty about it. It really is clear now I am at fault for this somehow. I’m terrified to find out how I am. I’m scared Dave will die. I am scared, honestly, maybe you’ll die, or Terezi, or even Nepeta…_

“I am not one of the psychic ones, bro,” Gamzee cut in, “so if you were meaning to be saying something just now as you stared all space-cadet off into that potted fern there in front of you, I have no idea what it was.”

Karkat blinked, taking his eyes away from the lined up plants that decorated the entrance to the second floor stairwell. “Oh, just… I’m sad because other people are sad.”

Gamzee nodded, “Embassy gets the best of us all.”

“Empathy,” Karkat furrowed his brows, correcting him, “Empathy.”

“Yeah,” Gamzee merely nodded along. Karkat sighed. 

“I think I should go talk to people. Maybe I can help out some friends,” Karkat suggested. Gamzee shrugged then gave the thumbs up. Karkat departed from the tall, lanky troll, who then sat down in the plush armchair by the plants and started looking through the stack of pamphlets on the table beside it. 

All the familiar faces passed by. Jade and Dave were up front, talking to people. They were important at the moment. Visitors would come and hand them things, or hug them. John’s dad would shake hands with people then remain strictly standing there until the next. Without even having to look at the faces, Karkat skimmed over the visible horns, accounting for almost everyone but Vriska and Aradia, besides himself and Gamzee. Everyone, admittedly, looked rather nice by the standards of human culture. The male trolls wore suits and long pants, some probably borrowed for the evening. The girls all wore either suits or dresses, but nonetheless chic. Many of them had colorful accessories, like a thin scarf, headband, tie, or similar accessory that matched their color. 

He wasn’t surprised Vriska was missing. Funerals probably weren’t her forte, with all the genuinely sad crying and uptight, tense atmosphere. Aradia, Karkat did question. _She’s involved in this, no doubt,_ Karkat winced, _I can’t deny that anymore. She has to be. She may not be a ghost, but something is up._

Nepeta rose from her seat and started to peruse the flowers along the wall, sniffing a few and awing at some colorful ones. She then reached over and pawed at Terezi. Terezi directed her attention to Nepeta, before getting up and joining her. They both enjoyed the myriad of colorful bouquets of flowers, some complex and others more simple. He did hope, though, they would know better than to eat any of them. He walked over. 

Nepeta cast him a glance, “Hello!”

“Enjoying the flowers?” Karkat asked, trying to find something less gloomy to think about.

“Sure are,” Terezi smiled, “Very nice collection here.”

“There’s a garden in the back,” someone chipped in. 

Karkat, Nepeta, and Terezi paused to listen to the new person. Sollux smiled a thin grin. He was wearing a long black suit jacket with symmetrical buttons on both sides. While his dress shirt underneath was a golden-yellow, his bow tie was a split red-blue to match his favorite shades. 

“A garden out back?” Terezi smiled, “I wanna go.

“Is it open to guests?” Karkat asked.

“It’s filled with these inspirational religious quotes on rocks and a bunch of fancy benches. In fact, you could even donate a rock with a person’s name on it if you want. They put it in this little area in the back of the garden. I was just looking at it,” Sollux explained. 

They all thought about it before agreeing. On the way out the back door onto the patio, they walked past a secretarial worker stationed at a cozy little desk by the door.

“Hi!” She beamed, “heading out there again? I’m glad it’s appreciated. Would you like to add a memorial stone to the pile?”

“Uhh,” Karkat thought about it, “Sure.”

“Yeah, let’s do it for John and Rose,” Nepeta suggested.

Karkat nodded, “Can we do two? Or do they have to be for a funeral held here?”

The lady shook her head, “Nope, anyone, although we mostly get them for funerals here. We only recently started it up last year. Both humans and your kind, err, trolls, are welcomed inclusions. We do troll funerals too at a really low cost.”

“Have you done any yet?” Sollux asked. 

“Yeah, oh, uh,” she suddenly paused, looking between Sollux and Karkat, “no maybe not, I thought we had but I don’t actually remember any. We will though if anyone asks. Is that two for the memorial stone garden?”

Karkat nodded.

“Awesome, that’ll be ten dollars. Five per stone. That should be our hundredth stone!” She kept smiling. 

Handing over the money and receiving the stones and a weatherproof marker, Karkat looked down at the stone, hoping he wrote neatly enough for it. 

“I take that back, I suppose we are still one short on one hundred,” the lady frowned, “I really was so certain. Well, feel free to write the names on them and add them wherever you like in the memorial stone garden space.”

The trolls all nodded before walking through the doorway and away from the draining cheerfulness of the worker. Karkat sat the stones down and Terezi with Nepeta in hand already were parading through the tall flowering bushes, colorful blossomed trees, and various bunches of foliage. Sollux sat down on a bench and crossed his legs, laying his head back and letting the relatively harmless sun cast over him. His glasses cast a bright reflection onto his skin. Karkat sat next to him. 

“This feels like it’s taking forever,” Karkat said. Sollux agreed.

“It is.”

A few butterflies and bees nuzzled through the flowers around them.

“It’s going to take a long time before this is over.”

Sollux responded, “Mhmm.”

“I’m glad trolls never got into the habit of hours long services for every time one of us died. We’d never get anything accomplished,” Karkat laughed.

Sollux brought his head forward with a genuine smile, “That’s true. The sentiment may be nice but the length? Do we really need so much time to ogle at the dead?”

They both smiled, but Karkat quickly felt guilty for mocking the humans. This was what they did. Dave slowly stepped out onto the patio from the doorway, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. 

“You guys found something worth smiling about?” Dave asked. Karkat swallowed. A bee bounced through the air between them, hovering around the bright red lens in Sollux’s frame. Sollux eyed Karkat without looking over. _Technically laughing at your human traditions._ Karkat looked over at Sollux, watching the bee bumble its tiny head into the red lens. It hovered before bonking itself back into the glass again. 

“There’s a funny bee,” Karkat offered a gesture towards the tiny creature. Dave tilted his head down, peering over his frames. 

“It is kinda funny. It thinks the red is a flower,” Dave shrugged before stepping out onto the gravel path that wound through the garden. He tossed his gaze across the memorial stones and flowers before walking up to the benches and finally dropping to rest on the one to the left of Karkat. In his pants pocket, Karkat felt his phone vibrate, notifying him of a message. 

He didn’t think much of it, but it was strange to be messaging him when anyone who would want to talk to him was probably within fifty feet at the moment. Sollux couldn’t help but snoop just slightly, but didn’t move to upset the bee now walking around the upper wire of the frame. 

AA: where are you 

CG: THE FUNERAL. FOR JOHN. WHERE ELSE WOULD I BE.

AA: yes i imagined that part would be obvious. no i am asking where within the funeral parlor are you. i would like to talk but it would not be in my best interest to simply show up given the circumstances. 

CG: THE GARDEN IN THE BACK. YOU HAVE TO WALK THROUGH THE BUILDING TO GET THERE BUT THE SIDE DOOR BY THE SECRETARY IS THE CLOSEST. 

AA: ah thank you. that is considerably helpful. who is around or are you alone.

CG: TEREZI AND NEPETA ARE FONDLING FLOWERS. DAVE JUST SHOWED UP TO TALK TOO. SOLLUX IS NEXT TO ME AT THE MOMENT. 

There was a pause in responding. Sollux sat up straight, making the bee go back to hovering before it gently buzzed away. 

The taller, four-horned troll quietly cleared his throat, obviously now looking down at Karkat’s screen. “What are you doing there, KK?”

“Messaging someone,” Karkat defended himself immediately. He closed off his phone screen, sending it to black at the click of a side button. 

Sollux raised an eyebrow, “Oh, I know that.”

Dave looked over from his spot, patting his hand on his thigh. He too then crossed his legs, making Karkat the only one stiffly sitting there drawn inward. Even the introverted Sollux was allowing himself to be more comfortable than Karkat was. 

Terezi snickered from afar before Nepeta jumped on her back. The two tousled for a moment, laughing. Terezi pushed Nepeta with a toothy grin, “There’s mints inside. All over the place. Let’s go find them all.” Nepeta nodded as they both skittered side by side back into the funeral home. Karkat’s phone buzzed again.

AA: so i should wait then

CG: THE TWO SEMI-FERAL TROUBLEMAKERS JUST RAN SOMEWHERE ELSE ACTUALLY

AA: dave and sollux are still in your company, correct?

CG: YES

AA: i believe that may not be a major problem.

Karkat sighed. He angled his phone screen towards his chest when he typed. 

“I can still see your screen, KK,” Sollux pointed out. 

“Agh!” Karkat snapped. 

At this point, Dave sighed deeply. He looked at Sollux then to the annoyed Karkat between them. The blond shook his head, crossing his arms. For a second, he appeared lost in thought. 

“This is as good as ever to come clean about what is happening,” Dave interjected into the silence. 

Sollux now sighed, “That’s what FF and I thought had happened. Someone is so far out of the loop the loop is a dot to them. I’m talking about you, yes, so stop with the death glare.” He scoffed at Karkat. 

Karkat stood up, balling his fists. He stomped before whipping around. “Will someone tell me what is happening without this two month long preface to it, finally?! I am so _fucking_ tired!”

“Language, don’t be immature like that in a place like this,” Sollux cooly said. Karkat took a deep breath. 

Dave propped his arm up on the bench’s iron arm. He then leaned into it, thinking. “Yeah, no one told him. It all got screwed up.” The two in the know shared a long look. Dave continued, “Karkat, do you know the legend of our homeroom? Frog Hall room 30?”

Karkat resigned himself back to the seat next to Sollux. He felt like an absolute idiot right now, knowing a lecture would be soon to follow. At least the people to witness it were minimally fond of him, so they wouldn’t openly berate him with hostility, he hoped. “At the beginning of school, I did overhear some girls talking about our class in the hallway. About whether something was true or not.”

Dave nodded, “And?”

“Nothing else. Rose wanted to tell me something. You wanted to. I am pretty sure Eridan is mad about something I don’t know about. Aradia is involved somehow. I thought she was a ghost… but I asked her after school one day and she verified she was certainly not a ghost.”

Sollux raised both his eyebrows and tensed his jaw as he nodded at no one in particular, “That definitely confirmed what I said. Wait what do you mean verified certainly.” Sollux suspiciously squinted. 

“Nothing like _that_!”

“Anyway!” Dave sliced back into the story, “there is a curse on our homeroom. It happens every year. This curse is very well known but it has the taboo-factor of hush-hush don’t talk about it attached to it. That is for other students, at least. In our class, it is a genuine hush-hush. Alright, from the top… twenty years ago, it was twenty, right?”

Sollux pondered then nodded.

Dave continued, “Twenty years ago, your kind, the trolls, obviously, not short people in general, first started to visit our Earth with interest in trying out our school systems. Who knows why. Humans don’t even like the damned thing. Obviously, as we know now that was initially a mess, but our school worked some stuff out after the humans chilled the fuck out. So, a handful of trolls were placed in our homeroom, room 30, along a bunch of humans too. Now they mostly keep them together but it was significantly more of a spread out attempt then. Trolls can be vivacious and vicious. So, one day there was an incident.

“Basically, a group of about six trolls turned on one particularly annoying human student in the class. And there, before everyone, they got into a brutal fight. The human was not so lucky. He ended up impaled on one of the troll’s horns, the one who acted like the leader. Xaleeb or something was his name. They were rather sharp with barbed points, making it a terrifying ordeal to pull the student off them. He died tragically in the room before any help could arrive.”

_Sounds like a blue like Vriska. She’d certainly impale someone._

“This had been a problem. The students were punished, albeit bizarrely, as our human government couldn’t necessarily prosecute them of any crimes as the law unfortunately specifies humans. Regardless, the students left on suspension. During this time, the students memorialized the student’s seat. They put a photo of them. Little flowers. Notes. They set the seat aside. It was just a memorial space. It wasn’t meant to stay. When the trolls came back, they were confused at first. The openly sentimentalist nature of the human students towards a dead classmate was odd to them. So, they tried to play along. The trolls responsible started to pretend the dead student was present. They would include him in roll call. The trolls would offer the dead student handouts. Soon all the students pretended the dead had been present. Harmless, they thought. It helped them cope with the death at hand. There was a difference though. There is a significant, impervious difference between memorialization in reality-” Dave flicked his head upwards, pointing his jaw towards the various scattered stones, “and recreating a reality with such potent energy behind it. In the place of death, they invited something to fill the spot that was left unfulfilled.” 

“Invited something?” Karkat asked.

Dave nodded, “So, the next year, school started as usual. There were always enough seats, but suddenly there were too many. No one could figure it out. After such careful planning… one extra student was among them. The _dead_ student had returned. This set the balance off. Because of the presence, one student started dying or being killed off each month. The universe was trying to fix the wrong, to track down the escaped dead, to even it back out. It didn’t have to always be the student. Family members were fair game too. The weirdest part? No one knew it, that the dead student was back. The curse changes everyone’s memories. The dead student was never dead to these students nor anyone in the town. He simply was as he had been in life. Even the dead student did not know he was a ghost. It wasn’t until after almost the entire class perished by the end of the school year, that is when the curse let’s go, did the survivors suddenly regain their normal memories. They realized who the ghost was. In fact, that was when they realized there had even been a ghost. This happened every year for almost ten years. You can imagine how this was a problem. Students just dying? Dropping like flies? They finally figured out a cure! Well, not a cure… more of a ward, or a protective measure…” 

“They can stop it?” Karkat asked. 

Dave laughed with a tone of sorrow, “Well, yes… they discovered if they pretended one student did not exist at all in any shape or form to them while remaining a student in the class, no one died. You know why?”

Karkat shook his head. 

“It evened it back out. The extra was accounted for. It was anyone. Any volunteer student. Sometimes it turned out the extra was the ghost, but rarely. Typically, it is a living student making a sacrifice to be invisible to everyone in the class until the end of the year to save everyone else. If anyone speaks or acknowledges the chosen extra student after the very beginning of the school year, the ward is broken. This causes the curse to start. The deaths begin. They cannot be stopped.”

“Is that what happened?”

“At first, that is not what we thought was happening,” Sollux now spoke up. “Bad things just happen. We didn’t know you didn’t know. Why think you broke the rules then? When Rose died, I heard it all happen. It was terrible, but… normal. Maybe, it was a fluke.”

“When my Bro died, we got more worried. At that point, we had realized you broke the rule. We were hoping it wasn’t enough to trigger. Since he was only family and not a student, some of us were hoping it really was just another coincidence. He was a moron. He was going to slaughter himself in some way one day. It was almost expected. So we waited before throwing in the towel.”

“Statistically,” Sollux mused, “we had reason to still believe in the ward.”

“Then John fell…” Karkat whispered. 

Dave inhaled for a while, “That is something about the curse. It makes convenient errors in our lives to allow for the death to occur. An otherwise careful individual may suddenly forget to look both ways. An otherwise reckless individual may suddenly become overly cautious and die from stress. It does whatever it can to increase its chances of success. That’s why I think I forgot to tell you as time went on. So after John, which is where we are now, I cannot honestly say I think this is just coincidence. I know the ward is ruined. Why not be full swing curse mode now?”

Karkat felt sick, “Was… was Aradia…”

“She offered. I asked her not to. I really did. I didn’t think I could be happy without talking to her the whole year, having to pretend she wasn’t real… Yes, she was the extra,” Sollux confirmed. 

Karkat suddenly was sick. His skin flushed as heat seemed to slither through his body. He talked to Aradia. He acknowledged Aradia. He did this. _He did this_. If he stood, he may have fainted like a damsel in a B-horror fright scene. Every time he was supposed to learn about this curse, that must have been the urgent message from Rose, he got interrupted. The curse really did intervene. Was this his fault or was it meant to be?

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t anyone tell me ‘Hey! There is a curse, by the way. Don’t talk to Aradia!’” Karkat flapped his arms before folding them again. 

“Saying ‘Don’t talk to Aradia’ would require… acknowledging Aradia… which would break the ward’s protection,” Sollux blinked, waiting for Karkat to realize everyone wasn’t just a ditzy mess. 

He didn’t respond. It simply clicked. 

Dave guffawed, “Actually, Karkat, you are such a fucking dumbass! So many people tried to tell you! I may not like the gilled bastard, but superstitious Eridan was rather uptight about the whole thing and he even risked potentially acknowledging her existence by trying to warn you like… three times.” 

Sollux nodded, “This is true, I saw it happen.”

Karkat barked indignantly, “I know, I was there.”

Dave contemplated for a moment, “So, that’s where we are at. There is a ghost student in our class. Someone is going to continue to die each month, minimum.”

AA: i’m here.

Karkat looked down at his phone. He looked at the notification brightly lit up on the screen. “Should I still not talk to Aradia then? If it’s pointless now?”

Sollux nibbled his lip thinking, then looked over to Dave, “Well, it is possible we could worsen the curse by not compensating at all. During class, maybe we ought to continue the ward, just in case… I’d rather be cautious. Not everyone in class may be ready to admit the curse is alive and running. To them, the ward still needs protection. Any one of us could be next,” Sollux looked at Karkat, “so, we need to keep that in mind.”

Anyone. Dave. Sollux. Aradia. Gamzee. Terezi. _Him?_

Dave and Sollux returned to the funeral. Dave returned first, going back to his more authoritarian role in the funeral as John’s best friend. Sollux finally returned out of restlessness. Admittedly, Sollux did not enjoy the crowd, but the garden was growing monotonous fast. Karkat sat there, waiting. Aradia had said she was there, but still hadn’t come through. The garden was where he told her to meet him, so he couldn’t go anywhere. Karkat took out his phone and messaged Aradia.

CG: WHERE ARE YOU?

Pause.

AA: garden? 

CG: THAT IS WHERE I AM. WHERE ARE YOU? ARE THERE MORE THAN ONE GARDEN?

AA: no only one. i can see you. i was waiting for you to acknowledge me. i have been here for a while. 

CG: WHAT

Karkat finally looked around. Aradia was sitting, cross-legged, by the center fountain. She was holding a flower she had picked in her hands, running a finger over the soft petals. She smiled at him and brushed her hair back. 

“Hello, finally looked over?” Aradia laughed softly. Karkat gaped. 

“How did you get in here without me noticing?”

“You are not perceptive.”

Karkat frowned and crossed his arms. It didn’t matter if Aradia was right, it still was mildly offensive. It almost felt worse because it was so blatantly true at the moment. 

“I didn’t want to intervene if too many people were around,” Aradia plucked a petal from the flower and watched it gently float to the ground. 

“I know why. Dave and Sollux just told me about the legend. The curse, too. I understand everything now,” Karkat watched her continue to contemplate over each petal before severing it from the flower. 

Aradia twiddled a petal in her fingers before letting it fall to the ground with the others. She breathed out a sigh, “It is best for you to know.”

Sollux’s theory flashed in Karkat’s mind. _Well, it is possible we could worsen the curse by not compensating at all. During class, maybe we ought to continue the ward, just in case… I’d rather be cautious._ Karkat continued to be the opposite of cautious by talking to her. Then, something jolted him. Aradia always had known the rule. She even offered to be the extra. 

Karkat stiffened, thinking about how three people were dead now because of his accidental mistake. Yet, Aradia wasn’t blameless. “Why did you let me talk to you?” He asked. 

Aradia delayed plucking the next petal before looking over at him. “I told you. I was dreadfully curious what would happen. That and loneliness set in far faster than I had expected by being the extra. You not knowing was unfortunately… too appetizing to ignore. You can’t deny I tried to help you figure it out. I wasn’t going to tell you. That would have ruined the suspense. By being invisible to everyone else, I lost a considerable amount of opportunities for entertainment.” 

Karkat did not know, in that moment, if he wanted to be angry or betrayed. Was it the feeling of being used? Whatever it was, it flickered in and out. It kept getting overridden by the desire to learn more about the situation from Aradia. 

“Dave said there is a dead student among us, but we won’t know who it is. A ghost.”

Aradia nodded. 

“There is no way to stop the curse and any one of us can be the ghost! People are going to keep dying while this ghost gets to parade around scott-free,” Karkat frustratedly swung his arms. 

Aradia laughed and held a thin petal up to the sky. She peered through the thin veiny texture with a growing smile, “There is good news then amidst this horrendous tragedy. I know who the ghost is. I can see who is going to die and who is dead, after all.”

Karkat jumped up, “Who is it!”

“I cannot say,” she suddenly frowned and set the thin petal off to the side. She returned to the dissection of the flower. After a while, she tossed all the petals back into the garden where a couple of bumblebees were making their rounds. 

“Why not! Tell me who the ghost is!” Karkat demanded. 

Aradia shook her head, “I can’t. Why must I be the one to steal someone’s chance to live again? The students will die regardless. Knowing the ghost will help nothing, I am sure. Only more pain.”

Karkat choked, “Am I the ghost?”

Aradia laughed, “No, Karkat. I promise you are not a ghost. I promise I am not the ghost.”

The shorter troll dug his hands into his pockets to restrain himself from swinging angrily. He ground his teeth and groaned, “Alright, alright, fine! Is the ghost here?”

Aradia tilted her head and lifted her hands both to her face before gently running them through her hair, gripping the long, luscious tufts into a solid grip. She pulled the burgundy-rust colored scrunchy from her left wrist, something Karkat had only now noticed, and pulled it all into a low hanging ponytail. She hummed aloud, “I think that’s safe enough. Yes.”

Karkat immediately clapped, “Then it _isn’t_ Vriska, at least! She’s not here. One less to guess.”

“No, Vriska is here. She brought some food to Terezi. I saw them out front together. I think they were stealing the funeral procession flags.”

 _Damnit_. 

There was a small ringing melody that resounded from inside the parlor. It echoed out into the garden. The wake period was over. It was now time for the service. Karkat had to go back inside now, sit in a chair, and be surrounded by friends and acquaintances. He wasn’t sure now how calmly he could do that. There was a dead human in a box up at the front of the room and a dead friend in a chair, somewhere, looking at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funeral for a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding) by Elton John
> 
> I am so sorry for the later than anticipated update! As of right now, there is about 15 chapters to go, give or take a few depending on my pacing as I go through my plot list. I am absolutely up to any suggestions, comments, or theories you have!


End file.
